Ullrich v. Chicago City Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1914
• Docket Number: No. 9475.,9475.
• Citation: 265 Ill. 338,106 N.E. 828
• Parties: ULLRICH v. CHICAGO CITY RY. CO.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

265 Ill. 338

106 N.E. 828

ULLRICH

v.CHICAGO CITY RY. CO.^*

No. 9475.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 16, 1914.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 3, 1914.

Error to Branch B. Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Duane J. Carnes, Judge.

Action by Lillian Ullrich, a minor, by William Ullrich, her next friend, against the Chicago City Railway Company. There was a judgment of the Appellate Court (184 Ill. App. 538) affirming a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings certiorari. Reversed and remanded.

Charles Le Roy Brown and James G. Condon, both of Chicago (Leonard A. Busby, of Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

James C. McShane, of Chicago, for defendant in error.

COOKE, J.

The defendant in error, Lillian Ullrich, who was then a minor, by William Ullrich, her next friend, brought suit in the circuit court of Cook county against the Chicago City Railway Company, plaintiff in error, to recover for injuries alleged to have been sustained in a street car accident in the city of Chicago. She recovered a judgment for $5,500, which was affirmed by the Appellate Court for the First District. The cause has been brought to this court for further review by writ of certiorari.

The points chiefly relied on for reversal are: (1) That the court permitted an improper use of medical books in the cross-examination of expert witnesses called on behalf of plaintiff in error; and (2) that the court erred in permitting the wife of the next friend to testify in behalf of defendant in error.

At the beginning of the trial in the circuit court the plaintiff in error stated that the motorman who was driving the car which caused the injury to defendant in error was dead, and, as he was the only person by whom plaintiff in error could have proved the manner in which the accident occurred, it was in no position to offer any evidence on the question of liability, and it was admitted that the defendant was negligent. The only question left, therefore, was to determine the extent of plaintiff in error's liability, and the only controverted question on the trial was whether defendant in error suffered any serious injury.

It was the contention of plaintiff in error that, aside from some trivial bruises, the ailments from which defendant in error suffered after the accident were due wholly to conditions which existed prior to that time, and that the accident neither caused nor contributed to cause those ailments. On the other hand, defendant in error claimed that before she was injured her health was good, but that after the accident she suffered from hysteria and peritonitis, and that those afflictions were the result of the accident. Considerable evidence, both expert and lay, was introduced by the respective parties on this question. Evidence was introduced on behalf of plaintiff in error which tended to prove that defendant in error had suffered from hysteria prior to the time of the accident, and expert evidence was offered to show that the accident neither caused nor contributed to the hysteria which she suffered thereafter. Two expert witnesses were called on behalf of plaintiff in error who testified that hysteria can never be the result of or caused by accident but that it is congenital. Each of these witnesses based his opinion upon his own personal observations and experience, and did not rely upon any text-books or writers upon this subject. It was the theory of defendant in error that hysteria could be caused by an accident, and that it was so caused in this case and was known as traumatic hysteria. Upon the cross-examination of each of the expert witnesses called by plaintiff in error counsel for defendant in error was permitted, over objection, to ask the witness if there was not a difference of opinion among the authorities as to whether hysteria was hereditary or antedated convulsion; whether the witness knew of Dr. Johnson's work on surgical diagnosis-counsel stating in this connection that he desired to show that hysteria may exist without any previous history or any previous disposition; whether it was not true that much less importance was attached by the Germans to the necessity of predisposition as a cause of hysteria than by the French; whether the witness' source of knowledge of hysteria upon which he was basing his opinion was derived entirely and solely from his own experience, and not by consulting any of the authorities on the subject; whether his information was based upon the writings of recognized authorities on that subject; whether the witness was acquainted with what the authors of the text-books of schools of Europe and America said in reference to hysteria; whether the witness could give the name of a single book that lays down the proposition that hysteria may not result from traumatism; whether the witness was acquainted with Bailey's work on the diseases of the nervous system; whether he had...