Roosa v. Boston Loan Co.

• Decision Date: 03 March 1882
• Citation: 132 Mass. 439
• Parties: Emma Roosa v. Boston Loan Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

132 Mass. 439

Emma Roosa v. Boston Loan Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

March 3, 1882

Middlesex. Tort for assault and battery. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J., the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions, which appear in the opinion.

Exceptions sustained.

N. B Bryant, for the defendant.

G. W Morse, for the plaintiff.

Endicott, J. Lord, Field & C. Allen JJ., absent.

OPINION

Endicott, J.

When the bodily or mental feelings of a party are to be proved, his exclamations or expressions indicating present pain or malady are competent evidence; and in Bacon v. Charlton, 7 Cush. 581, 586, where this rule is stated, it was said by the court: "Such evidence, however, is not to be extended beyond the necessity on which the rule is founded. Anything in the nature of narration or statement is to be carefully excluded, and the testimony is to be confined strictly to such complaints, exclamations and expressions as usually and naturally accompany, and furnish evidence of, a present existing pain or malady." The opinion closes with this precaution: "These remarks as to the limitation of the rule are not intended to apply to the statements made by a patient to a medical man, to which a different rule may be applicable."

In Chapin v. Marlborough, 9 Gray 244, it was held, on the authority of Bacon v. Charlton, that a physician could not testify to a statement made by the plaintiff, that his leg had been struck by a horse. And in Barber v. Merriam, 11 Allen 322, the question arose, whether the plaintiff's statements to her physician, made after the suit was brought, as to the character and seat of her injuries and sensations, were competent. The only point decided was, that such statements to her medical adviser, as to the character and seat of her injuries and sensations, were admissible. Aveson v. Kinnaird, 6 East, 188, 195, and the Gardner Peerage case, 78, 172, 175, are cited as authorities, where the statements of a patient to a physician of symptoms and complaints are held to be competent evidence.

In Illinois Central Railroad v. Sutton, 42 Ill. 438, the plaintiff was ejected from a train. He contended that he had been suffering from disease, and that it was aggravated by the walk which he was obliged to take by reason of his expulsion. His physician testified as to his condition, and also that he was informed by the plaintiff that his present condition was caused by over exertion in walking. The court held that the statements of a patient to a physician of his pain and suffering, and in regard to his bodily condition, are competent to enable him to form an opinion as to the extent and nature of his injuries; but that it was not competent for the physician to testify to the plaintiff's statements as to the specific cause of the injury, that being one of the issues before the...