Southern Ry. Co. v. Hubbard
| Decision Date | 15 June 1897 |
| Citation | 22 So. 541,116 Ala. 387 |
| Parties | SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. HUBBARD. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from city court of Birmingham; H. A. Sharpe, Judge.
Action by Joe Hubbard against the Southern Railway Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Smith & Weatherly, for appellant.
B. M Alen, for appellee.
The action is in case, and brought to recover damages for personal injuries. Only one assignment of error is insisted upon in the brief and argument of counsel for appellant. The defendant (the appellant here) filed interrogatories to the plaintiff, under the provisions of section 2816 of the Code of 1886. By section 2818, the answers to these interrogatories are made evidence in the cause, when offered by the party taking them. During the progress of the trial the appellant offered in evidence a part of the answer to the third interrogatory, and a part of the answer to the sixth interrogatory, which, upon objection, were excluded, and this is the error assigned.
It is the settled construction of the statutes which authorize the filing of interrogatories to the opposite party, and offering the answers in evidence, that only the party taking them can make them evidence, and, if he offers a portion of the answers in evidence, he thereby makes the whole evidence. Saltmarsh v. Bower, 22 Ala. 221; Crocker v. Clements, 23 Ala. 296. Appellant concedes this to be the law, but says the purpose of offering the specified portions of the answers in evidence was not to make such portions evidence, but for the purpose of impeaching the witness, by showing that he had made contradictory statements. We need not decide the question whether a part of the answer is admissible for this purpose. Counsel for appellant are well advised of the rules of evidence and practice for impeaching witnesses by showing that they have made contradictory statements, and could have expressed their purpose in such unambiguous language as not to have been misunderstood either by opposite counsel or the trial court. The purpose of offering only parts of the answer is thus expressed: "These passages from said deposition of the plaintiff were offered for the purpose of contradicting the plaintiff's testimony on the witness stand." If the facts, as testified to by a witness, are shown by other witnesses to be incorrect, his testimony is contradicted, and yet the witness is not impeached by...
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