Goodie v. Price

• Decision Date: 19 October 1925
• Citation: 130 A. 512
• Parties: GOODIE v. PRICE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

130 A. 512

GOODIE

v. PRICE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Oct. 19, 1925.

On Motion from Superior Court, Penobscot County, at Law.

Action by Peter Goodie against Henry E. Price. Verdict for plaintiff. On defendant's motion. Motion overruled.

Argued before WILSON, C. J., PHILBROOK, DUNN, STURGIS, and BARNES, JJ., and SPEAR, A. R. J.

A. L. Blanchard, of Bangor, for plaintiff.

George E. Thompson, of Bangor, and Ross St. Germain, of Greenville, for defendant.

SPEAR, A. R. J. This is an action for the recovery of damages for an injury to a heifer, resulting from the alleged negligent operation of an automobile. The heifer, with other cows, was passing across the highway from the pasture to the plaintiff's barn, when struck by a car driven by the defendant's son, whose agency is admitted. The heifer's leg was broken, and she had to be killed. The verdict was for the plaintiff in the sum of $63.

The testimony, while conflicting, presented a pure question of fact, and, as has been said so many times, was peculiarly within the province of the jury to decide. Moreover, a careful examination of the evidence does not reveal a verdict that warrants the intervention of the court.

But the defendant goes further and contends, even though the verdict might be permitted to stand upon the evidence pertaining to the accident and the manner in which it happened, that, nevertheless, the case was prejudiced against the defendant by the alleged improper conduct of the plaintiff's attorney in deliberately pursuing a course of cross-examination of the defendant's son for the purpose of disclosing the fact that an insurance company was defending the cause. Therefore it is incumbent upon the court in the present case to consider the contention of the defendant in this regard. The court cannot avoid the conclusion from the testimony that the plaintiff's attorney in pressing the cross-examination which was calculated to disclose the presence of an insurance company deliberately transgressed the bounds of legal ethics in his persistent effort to accomplish that end.

As a matter of law, however, the disclosure of an insurance company is immaterial, and should be excluded for that reason, if for no other. While the appearance of such disclosure has "no legitimate bearing" upon the rights of the parties, nevertheless, as a matter of fact, our court has held that, "to allow juries, in cases of this kind, to take into consideration the fact that an employer was insured...