Snow v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 March 1904
• Citation: 185 Mass. 321,70 N.E. 205
• Parties: SNOW v. NEW YORK, N.H. & H. R. CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

185 Mass. 321

70 N.E. 205

SNOW v. NEW YORK, N.H. & H. R. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 31, 1904

COUNSEL

James E. Cotter and James F. McAnarney, for plaintiffs.

Choate & Hall, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON, J.

These are two actions of tort, which were tried together. The first is for injuries received by the female plaintiff in a collision on the defendant's railroad on December 16 1899, while a passenger; and the second is by the husband for expenses and loss of consortium. The liability was admitted and the only question in each case was the amount of the damages. The verdicts were unsatisfactory to the plaintiffs, and the cases are here on their exceptions to certain rulings and instructions and to the admission of certain testimony.

There was testimony tending to show that, as the result of the injuries received, the female plaintiff became subject to attacks of dizziness, which continued at intervals from the time of her injury down to the time of the trial, which occurred in May, 1903, and there was testimony tending to show that on one occasion, when alone in her home several months before the trial, she got into a pantry sink by means of a chair, to see about a leak in the water pipe above the sink, and while standing in the sink had an attack of dizziness, and fell to the floor, and broke her wrist. She offered to show the pain and other inconveniences which she suffered from the broken wrist, but the court excluded the evidence, and instructed the jury not to consider the consequences of the broken wrist, as they were too remote, and the defendant was not responsible. The plaintiff excepted to these rulings and instructions, and this constitutes the first exception.

The case of Raymond v. Haverhill, 168 Mass. 382, 47 N.E 101, would be decisive on this point except for the fact that it was a highway case. It was held in that case that the plaintiff, whose right ankle had been injured by a defect in a sidewalk in the defendant city, so that it became weak, and was liable at times to turn and fail to support her, could not recover for injuries received by her in consequence of a fall due to the failure of the ankle to support her as she was stepping from a chair to a settee while assisting in preparing for an entertainment in a public hall. It was held that the injuries so received were not the direct and immediate results of the injury received in consequence of the defect in the public way, but were due to a new and independent cause. It is true that cities and towns are not liable for consequential injuries resulting from...