Lenz v. Pub. Serv. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1923
• Docket Number: No. 38.,38.
• Citation: 121 A. 741
• Parties: LENZ v. PUBLIC SERVICE RY. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

121 A. 741

LENZ

v. PUBLIC SERVICE RY. CO.

No. 38.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 18, 1923.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Suit by Frank Lena against the Public Service Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Leonard J. Tynan, of Newark, for appellant.

Adam J. Rossbach, of Newark, for respondent.

ACKERSON, J. This was a suit in the district court of the Second judicial district of the county of Essex for damages resulting from the collision of plaintiff's automobile with a trolley car of the defendant company at or near the intersection of Warren and Eleventh streets, in the city of Newark. The plaintiff obtained judgment, from which an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgment below, whereupon the defendant appealed to this court.

Only one of the several specifications of determinations and directions of the district court with respect to which the defendant was dissatisfied in point of law, and which were presented to the Supreme Court, is argued on this appeal, viz. that the district court, over the objection of the defendant, charged jury as follows:

"In this case there is nothing to impeach the credibility of any of the witnesses; they all stand, as far as this case is concerned, as being entitled to an equal amount of credit for their testimony, except as you may observe from their attitude on the stand, whether they have been free and open or not"

It is argued by the defendant that this portion of the charge was erroneous, because one of plaintiff's witnesses, a Mrs. McAdams, testified on direct examination that the distance between plaintiff's automobile and the trolley car, when the automobile actually got on the track in front of the trolley car, was from 100 to 150 feet, which was contradicted by a previous written statement signed by her and introduced in evidence by the defendant, in which this distance was given by her as not more than 5 feet, and it is urged that because of this contradictory statement there was something to impeach the credibility of this witness, and that therefore the trial judge erred in charging as above quoted. The difficulty with the defendant's contention is that it seeks to apply to the word "impeach" a meaning entirely different from that given to it by the trial judge, and as heretofore defined by this court, and in order to do so segregates from the body of the whole charge the single sentence above quoted, without regard to other statements in the context which make the meaning perfectly plain.

Impeachment, as heretofore defined by this court, is an attack upon a witness' general reputation for truth and veracity, and is not, strictly speaking, the effect which is produced upon the credibility of his...