Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.
| Decision Date | 20 June 1916 |
| Citation | 224 Mass. 405 |
| Parties | MARY A. SULLIVAN v. BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY COMPANY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
March 13 1916.
Present: RUGG, C.
J., LORING, BRALEY DE COURCY, & CROSBY, JJ.
Witness Cross-examination. Evidence, Conflicting and correcting statements.
Where, in an action against a corporation operating a street railway for personal injuries sustained when the plaintiff was a passenger on a car of the defendant, the plaintiff on her direct examination describes the manner in which she was injured, and in her cross-examination there are read to the witness her own answers to interrogatories, which give a different account of the way the accident happened, and she then testifies that her answers to the interrogatories give a correct and absolutely true description of the happening of the accident notwithstanding anything that she has testified to on the witness stand, this is not to be treated as a mere instance of conflicting or inconsistent statements made upon cross-examination, and the plaintiff is to be bound by the statement last given as the truth.
Where an electric street railway car suddenly moves backward for a considerable distance just as passengers have entered it and then without a substantial interval of time moves forward, and where both motions are of such violence as to throw a passenger each time against some part of the car, this is so contrary to common experience in the ordinary operation of street railway cars as to warrant an inference of negligence in the operation of the car.
TORT for personal injuries sustained on October 9, 1913, when the plaintiff was a passenger on a semi-convertible street railway car of the defendant at about a quarter before nine o'clock in the evening on Cambridge Street in Cambridge between Sixth Street and Seventh Street. Writ dated November 14, 1913.
In the Superior Court the case was tried before Dana, J. At the close of the plaintiff's evidence, which is described in the opinion, the judge ordered a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.
H. A. Wilson, F.
Juggins & T. F. Murphy, for the plaintiff, submitted a brief.
F. J. Carney, for the defendant.
This is an action of tort to recover for personal injuries received by the plaintiff while a passenger on one of the defendant's prepayment cars. On direct examination, she testified that, as she was about to deposit her fare, after getting within the body of the car, it backed and then started forward; "then I got a grip . . . on the bar . . . and the car took a sudden lurch forward again and broke my grip on the bar and threw me. . . . This testimony, singularly similar in crucial words to those used by this court in Lacour v. Springfield Street Railway, 200 Mass. 34 would have been enough to require a submission of the case to the jury. But on cross-examination this occurred: ...
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Bonin v. Chestnut Hill Towers Realty Co.
...confused testimony given by Carabetta at a deposition; that deposition testimony he repudiated at trial. Cf. Sullivan v. Boston Elev. Ry., 224 Mass. 405, 406, 112 N.E. 1025 (1916). While it is a close question in this case, the weight of authority in broker's commission cases is to leave th......
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Bly v. St. Amand
...Tr. 2–12; Bly, 862 N.E.2d at 351–52 (citing Commonwealth v. Gaynor, 443 Mass. 245, 820 N.E.2d 233 (2005) ; Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Ry., 224 Mass. 405, 112 N.E. 1025 (1916) ); see also Milone v. Camp, 22 F.3d 693, 698, 703 (7th Cir.1994) ( “The admissibility of evidence is generally a ma......
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Com. v. Geisler
...the defendant was not entitled to have the challenged statement struck under the special rule stated in Sullivan v. Boston Elev. Ry., 224 Mass. 405, 406-407, 112 N.E. 1025 (1916). Rather, the motion was properly denied under the general rule that it is for the jury to assess the credibility......
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Com. v. Bly
...produced a repudiation of direct testimony, such that only one version of events could be believed. See Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Ry., 224 Mass. 405, 406-407, 112 N.E. 1025 (1916). Rather, whatever incongruity arose from cross-examination at trial went to the weight of the testimony. Id. ......