Materka v. Erie R. Co.

• Decision Date: 19 October 1915
• Docket Number: No. 61.,61.
• Citation: 95 A. 612
• Parties: MATERKA v. ERIE R. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

95 A. 612

MATERKA

v. ERIE R. CO.

No. 61.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Oct. 19, 1915.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Mary Materka, administratrix, against the Erie Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff was reversed by the Supreme Court, and she appeals. Affirmed.

The following is the per curiam opinion of the Supreme Court:

The appellant appeals from a judgment recovered by the respondent against it in the Hudson circuit. The appellant obtained a rule to show cause from the. court, reserving all exceptions taken at the trial, which rule was subsequently discharged.

The law points reserved, and which are before us on this appeal, are objections and exceptions taken by the appellant to the rulings of the trial judge with respect to the admission and rejection of evidence, to the refusal to direct a verdict for the appellant, and objections relating to the judge's charge. The case is briefly this: The respondent's decedent, 60 years of age, while crossing the appellant's tracks, at the public crossing in Rutherford, adjoining the railroad station, on the evening of the 6th of September, 1912, at about 6:50 o'clock, was killed by an express train, which it was claimed that the deceased could not see, and had no warning or notice of its approach, because the headlight of the locomotive engine was not lit, and for the further reasons that no statutory signals were given of its approach until it had reached a distance within 100 feet of the crossing, the place where the deceased was struck and killed.

On the trial of the cause, one Campbell, a police officer, who had been called as a witness by defendant company, and had been examined in chief and cross-examined, was recalled by the plaintiff for further cross-examination, and was asked whether he had at one time said to the daughters of decedent, Mrs. McCartney and Mrs. Laffenburg, that the railroad had been around with a statement already written up for him to sign, and wanted him to sign it without reading it, and they had a lot of their "dope" in it. The witness denied that he made the statement. Thereupon the plaintiff called both of the daughters of the decedent, as witnesses, to contradict Officer Campbell, and they were permitted to testify, against the objection of counsel of respondent, that the witness did make the statement.

The admission of this testimony was prejudicial and harmful to the appellant. The statement admitted, in effect, made the alleged statement of...