West Chicago St. Ry. Co. v. Kennelly

• Decision Date: 22 December 1897
• Parties: WEST CHICAGO ST. RY. CO. v. KENNELLY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

170 Ill. 508

48 N.E. 996

WEST CHICAGO ST. RY. CO.

v.KENNELLY.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Dec. 22, 1897.

Appeal from appellate court, First district.

Action for negligent personal injury by Mary Kennelly against the West Chicago Street-Railway Company. A judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the appellate court (66 Ill. App. 244), and the defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Egbert Jamieson, John A. Rose, and D. W. Munn, for appellant.

Wing, Chadbourne & Leach, for appellee.

CRAIG, J.

This was an action brought by Mary Kennelly to recover damages for a personal injury alleged to have been sustained by reason of the negligence of the West Chicago Street-Railroad Company. The declaration, which contained one count, alleged that on the 19th day of May, 1894, the plaintiff became a passenger upon one of the defendant's cars, which ran through a certain tunnel under the Chicago river, commonly known as the ‘Van Buren Street Tunnel’; that the defendant negligently permitted the train upon which the plaintiff was a passenger to run rapidly down the incline in said tunnel, and then caused the train to be suddenly and violently stopped, in consequence of which the plaintiff was thrown with great force and violence against one of the seats of the car, thereby causing the injury complained of in this case. On the trial the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and assessed her damages in the sum of $2,000. The court entered judgment on this verdict, and the defendant appealed to the appellate court of the First district, where the judgment was affirmed, and it now brings the record to this court for review.

It was claimed on the trial that, as a result of the accident, plaintiff received an injury on one of her hips, and her right ankle was badly sprained. On the other hand, it was claimed on the part of the defendant that the injuries were, in a great measure, from other causes, and, in support of this, new evidence was introduced, tending to prove that in August, 1890, the plaintiff fell through a defective sidewalk, and sprained her ankle; that she brought suit against the city, and received in settlement of the case $315. Evidence was also introduced tending to prove that, in the summer before the accident complained of, plaintiff was assaulted on the street by a man, who she said ‘had a grudge against her on account of a piece of property.’ In this assault she was knocked down, and seriously injured. Whether the injuries complained of grew out of the accident on the street car, or were from other causes, as claimed by the defendant, was a question of fact for the jury and the appellate court; but that question is not involved in this appeal, and hence it will not be considered.

No fault is found with the ruling of the court in instructions ordered, but one question has been presented for our consideration, and that is in reference to the ruling of the trial court on the admission of evidence. The witness Joran, who was on the car when the accident occurred, testified: ‘I went off my feet, of course. As the car ran down, the speed increased, and it came all of a sudden to a dead stop, and, of course, knocked everybody down in the car. (Defendant's counsel moved to strike out the last clause of the answer. Motion overruled. Exception by defendant.)’ The objection made to this evidence is that it was incompetent to show that the accident affected passengers on the car other than the plaintiff. The question before the jury was how, or in what manner, the plaintiff was injured, but we think it was competent, as a part of the res gestae, to show all that occurred, although in doing so it might appear that others were injured. The injury to others was a part and parcel of the same injury received by the plaintiff, and on describing the manner in which she was injured the manner in which others were affected was so closely connected that it would be almost impossible in an intelligent manner to give an account of one injury without at the same time disclosing the other.

For the purpose, it may be presumed, of showing that plaintiff was in good health before the...