Chicago & J. Elec. R. Co. v. Spence
| Decision Date | 22 December 1904 |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
| Parties | CHICAGO & J. ELECTRIC R. CO. v. SPENCE. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Appellate Court, Second District.
Action by Samuel Spence against the Chicago & Joliet Electric Railroad Company. From a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.E. Meers, for appellant.
Eddy, Haley & Wetten and J. L. O'Donnell, for appellee.
An electric car propelled by the appellant railway company, on which the appellee was riding as a passenger, collided with another of appellant's cars, and appellee was injured thereby. He instituted an action on the case in the circuit court of Will county, and, on a hearing before the court and a jury, was awarded judgment in the sum of $14,000. This judgment has been affirmed by the Appellate Court for the Second District, and the record is before us on the further appeal of the company.
The collision occurred on the 28th day of March, 1902. The appellee at that time was in the employ of the Inter-Ocean Construction Company as a timekeeper and inspector of poles for electric wires, at a salary of $125 per month. It was insisted before the jury that, because of the injury received during the collision of the cars, the appellee had become permanently disabled to labor or engage in the active pursuits of life. Damages were sought for such alleged loss of capacity to earn money in the future. As being proper for the consideration of the jury in arriving at a conclusion as to the pecuniary loss which would be inflicted on appellee by reason of his injuries and disabilities, the appellee was permitted to prove, without objection, that at the time of the collision he was employed as timekeeper and inspector for the construction company, and was receiving wages at the rate of $125 per month; that he had been so engaged since January, 1902-about three months before he was injured; that for the period of six months immediately preceding he was in the employ of the sanitary district of Chicago at the controlling works at Lockport, at a salary of $150 per month; that immediately prior thereto he was engaged for about one month in putting in abutments for the Joliet Bridge Company, at a salary of $125 per month, and that during the period of three months immediately preceding said last employment he was engaged in putting in concrete work for water wheels of an electric light company, at $125 per month and board, and that for the preceding term of two years he had worked for the sanitary district, inspecting bridges and building abutments and piers, at $100 per month; and that for some five or six months still prior thereto he was superintendent of a quarry in Tennessee, at a salary of $100 per month. Over the objection of the appellant company the appellee was allowed to prove that he was superintendent of the Western Stone Company from 1892 and 1893 at an annual salary of $2,500, and that he remained in that position until 1897, at a salary of $2,100 or $2,250 per annum. Appellee was injured in 1902. His employment as superintendent of the Western Stone Company at $2,500, in 1892, was ten years before he was injured, and the salary of $2,250 received by him as such superintendent, when his employment in that position terminated, was for services rendered in 1897-five years before he was injured.
The proper inquiry was the comparative capacity of the appellee to earn money at the time of and after he had received the injury. He was at the time of the collision of the age of 53 years. The salary that he had enjoyed when superintendent of the stone company, beginning ten years before and ending more than five years before the date of the injury, ought not, we think, to have been allowed to be proven. It was remote in point of time, and the employment was different in its nature from that in which he was engaged when injured, or had been engaged in for some five years before. He was a younger man and more capable then, and had either abandoned the position of superintendent, or had been supplanted by another. The salary he received from the stone company as superintendent from 1892 to 1897 was dependent on too many independent and collateral circumstances to give the jury any correct information as to the value of his earning power or capacity at the time he received the injuries which, as he claimed, deprived him of the capacity...
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