Patterson v. Pittsburgh Railways Co.

• Decision Date: 13 July 1939
• Docket Number: 58-1939
• Citation: 7 A.2d 478,136 Pa.Super. 432
• Parties: Patterson, Appellant, v. Pittsburgh Railways Company
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

7 A.2d 478

136 Pa.Super. 432

Patterson, Appellant, v. Pittsburgh Railways Company

No. 58-1939

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

July 13, 1939

Argued May 9, 1939.

Appeal from judgment of C. P., Allegheny Co., July T., 1934, No 2632, in case of T. H. B. Patterson v. Pittsburgh Railways Company.

Trespass for personal injuries. Before Wilson, P. J., specially presiding.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

Verdict and judgment for plaintiff in sum of $ 500. Plaintiff appealed.

Error assigned was refusal of motion for new trial.

Judgment affirmed.

John Duggan, Jr., with him Morris F. Cohen, for appellant.

D. H McConnell and J. R. McNary, for appellee, submitted a brief.

Before Keller, P. J., Cunningham, Baldrige, Stadtfeld, Parker Rhodes and Hirt, JJ.

OPINION

Baldrige, J.

The only complaint before us in this appeal in a trespass case is to the inadequacy of a $ 500 verdict.

The plaintiff was injured on the 13th of June, 1932, at the corner of Third Avenue and Wood Street, Pittsburgh. The negligence alleged is that the defendant's motorman prematurely started his car as plaintiff was about to board it, causing him to be thrown to the ground. Plaintiff was uncorroborated in his version of the happening of the accident. On the other hand, several witnesses, in addition to the motorman, including a passenger on the car and persons on the street in the immediate vicinity, testified that plaintiff left the sidewalk and ran into the left side of the car after it had started across the intersection. Immediately following the accident, plaintiff was taken to the hospital where he remained six days, returning for treatment twice a week for a "month or two." He resumed his work as a reporter on a newspaper "sometime between a month and six weeks" thereafter.

Plaintiff offered medical testimony that he sustained a lacerated scalp wound, injured skull, other bruises, and contusions, as a result of which he is now suffering from nervousness, high blood pressure, gastro intestinal trouble, etc.

Dr. Robinson, the attending physician at the hospital, called by the plaintiff, stated that plaintiff sustained a scalp wound and contusions on the right side of his body, and the only symptom of a concussion of the brain, which was alleged, was a headache of which plaintiff complained the first few days he was in the hospital.

Dr. McMeans, called by the defendant, who examined plaintiff three years after the accident, testified that he had made a good recovery and that he discovered no evidence of any disturbance within his skull; that he had known plaintiff for a number of years and that he had never been a healthy man.

This case was previously tried and reached the Supreme Court (see 322 Pa. 125, 128, 185 A. 283). Mr. Justice Stern, the writer of the opinion, in referring to plaintiff's complaints said that they "were vague and that the causal relation of the accident to the high blood pressure from which plaintiff is now suffering, and which was said to account for most of his other symptoms, rested upon testimony which, to say the least, was extremely tenuous." This comment is no less applicable to the testimony in the second trial. The jury very well could have concluded that the contusions and the cut in plaintiff's head promptly healed and that there was no serious injury as the result of the accident. Plaintiff returned to work shortly after he was injured and continued to perform his duties for about three years before he was discharged. In the meantime, his salary was reduced from $ 67.50 to $ 45 a week. His superior testified that he saw no change in plaintiff's ability as a workman after the accident, that complaints had been made prior thereto of his neglect of duties, and as he was one of the less efficient members on the newspaper staff, when the time came...