United Rys. & Elec. Co. v. Corbin
| Citation | 72 A. 606,109 Md. 442 |
| Parties | UNITED RYS. & ELECTRIC CO. v. CORBIN. |
| Decision Date | 12 January 1909 |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Maryland |
On Reargument, March 23, 1909.
Appeal from Baltimore Court of Common Pleas; Henry D. Harlan, Judge.
Action by Rose Corbin against the United Railways & Electric Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and new trial awarded.
See also, 71 A. 131.
Argued before BOYD, C.J., and PEARCE, SCHMUCKER, BURKE, and WORTHINGTON, JJ.
J Pembroke Thom and Joseph C. France, for appellant.
S. S Field, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment rendered in favor of the appellee against the appellant for injuries alleged to have been sustained by her on Howard street in the city of Baltimore, through the negligence of the defendant. The nar. alleges that by and through the negligence and carelessness of the defendant one of its wires, charged with electricity, "fell down in said plaintiff's way on said Howard street from its elevated and proper position, and came in contact with the plaintiff, and gave her an electric shock, and while it was falling towards said plaintiff, said wire was discharging great sparks of electricity, and as a result of the falling of said wire, as aforesaid, which was caused by the negligence of said defendant, its agents, and servants, the said plaintiff was placed in a perilous position, and in her efforts to extricate herself from said dangerous position, and to get out of the path of said falling and electric light wire, the plaintiff was seriously and permanently injured and damaged to her nervous system, and she was injured about her body and otherwise," etc. The wire which dropped into the street is what is called a "span wire," and was stretched across the street to hold up the wire on which the trolley runs. It was in some way pulled out of the ring which holds it to the pole, and it fell over the trolley wire, thereby becoming charged with electricity. The plaintiff contended that coming in contact with the wire caused the injuries, while the theory of the defendant was that so far as she sustained any injuries they were the result of fright, and not from contact with the wire. The evidence on the part of the plaintiff was to the effect that she was left in a very serious nervous condition, became unconscious at times, suffered from convulsions, etc. Her physicians testified that she was suffering from "traumatic hysteria"--which was described by them to be hysteria produced by shock or injury, as distinguished from that caused by disease.
Ten exceptions were taken to the rulings of the court on the evidence, and the eleventh embraces the rulings on the prayers. The court granted the two prayers offered by the plaintiff, and the sixth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth offered by the defendant, and rejected its first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, tenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, and overruled its special exception to the plaintiff's first.
The first, second, and third exceptions can be considered together. Dr. Baum had testified that from the history of the case he had received he concluded that "the results of this case were the results of a shock." He was then asked, "When you say from your examination of the case you diagnosed it as traumatic hysteria, or nervous condition produced by shock, what kind of a shock did you mean?" To which he replied, "Well from the history I elicited it was rather an electric shock or fright." Perhaps the word "rather" in the record was intended to be "either." He was then asked, "Tell the jury whether or not her condition could have been produced by fright merely without receiving an electric shock, or by the electric shock, if you say it could have been produced by either; tell them which, in your judgment, was the most probable cause of it." That question was objected to, but the court overruled the objection, and the witness answered, That ruling is presented by the first exception. His testimony then proceeded: The latter question was objected to, but, the objection being overruled, he answered, "I would say that the more probable was electric shock." That constituted the second exception, and immediately after that answer the defendant made a motion to strike it out, which the court refused, and that ruling is embraced in the third bill of exceptions. It was said in Williams v. State, 64 Md. 384, 1 A. 887, that an expert "may give an opinion not only as to the nature and effect of an injury, but also the manner or instrument by which it was inflicted." In 17 Cyc. 234, a great many illustrations are given of what medical experts are permitted to testify, amongst them "what he would judge was the cause of certain symptoms under given circumstances; which among several possible causes was the probable or approximate one." But while great latitude has been allowed in the examination of medical experts, they should not be permitted to express their opinions merely because they are physicians, but experts must be confined to subjects about which they are, or are presumed to be, acquainted. If a physician does not know more about the effect of a given cause than jurors or other people do, his opinion can be of no service in enabling the jury to reach a proper conclusion. This court said in Dashiell v. Griffith, 84 Md. 377, 35 A. 1095: "It is an unsafe practice in the admission of testimony to allow witnesses to speak as experts unless the court is well satisfied that they possess the requisite qualifications, not alone on this account, but the effect of such testimony is most difficult to estimate from the fact that undue importance not infrequently attaches to it, and gives to it an influence upon the minds of a jury to which it is not fairly or reasonably entitled." A physician may be a very intelligent man, and may be very well versed in his profession, but that does not make him competent to speak as an expert of things he is not specially acquainted with.
In this case there was no evidence that the plaintiff was injured in her efforts to extricate herself from a perilous position, as alleged in the latter part of the above quotation from the nar., and the question raised by the pleadings and evidence was whether the wire "came in contact with the plaintiff and gave her an electric shock." Indeed one of the prayers afterwards granted instructed the jury that, if they believed the plaintiff received no bodily injury from contact with the electric current emanating from the broken wire, but that her bodily injury and present condition were due to fright or nervous shock, caused by the flash or noise produced by said electric current, then the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and the plaintiff's own prayer required the jury to find that the wire came in contact with her person or clothing, and gave her an electric shock. The case as submitted to the jury was practically the same question asked Dr. Baum in the second bill of exceptions, excepting he was asked which of the two shocks probably caused her condition. Now if it be conceded that it is proper to ask a medical expert which of two possible causes was the probable or approximate one, surely he must be shown to have such knowledge of the effects of both as to be able to speak intelligently of them. This witness had not only not qualified himself as an electrical expert, or as a medical one acquainted with the effects of an electric current, but his cross-examination shows that he was not so qualified to speak. We will quote it: It is true that evidence was not in the record when the rulings on these exceptions were made, but it emphasizes the importance of seeing that a witness is qualified to speak as an expert before admitting his testimony. It shows that the opinion expressed by the witness was not founded on any special knowledge which qualified him as an expert. The theory of the defense was that there was no contact between the wire and person, and yet the witness said he was unable to answer the question last above quoted. He had already said that the plaintiff's condition might have been caused by fright without receiving an electric shock, or by an electric shock, and although he is not an electric expert, and has not shown that he knew what effect on the body an electric current would have, if the wire did not come in contact with the person, he was permitted to testify: "I would say that the more probable was the electric shock." The answer to the question in the first bi...
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