Williamson v. Cambridge R. Co.
| Decision Date | 26 February 1887 |
| Citation | 144 Mass. 148,10 N.E. 790 |
| Parties | ELIZABETH R. WILLIAMSON GEORGE WILLIAMSON v. CAMBRIDGE R. CO. GEORGE WILLIAMSON v. SAME. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
S.H. Dudley, for plaintiff.
The evidence of the exclamation of regret of the conductor immediately, or within a second or so, after the fall of the female plaintiff, was of the utmost consequence to her case for its admission, under proper instructions to the jury, may well have authorized the jury to find for plaintiff, and its exclusion may well have compelled them to find for defendant. The necessities of plaintiff's case, fortunately, do not require the court to admit, as part of the res gestae, the sayings or exclamations of a person made even several minutes, or after an appreciable lapse of time, after the occurrence of the principal event, and after the conductor had had time to collect his thoughts, and to weigh his words and thus to make of his exclamations what would then be substantially admissions. To support the plaintiff's contention, the court is not required to go so far, and to trespass so much on the domain of the history of past events as in Com. v. McPike, 3 Cush. 181; Travelers' Ins. Co. v. Mosley, 8 Wall. 397; Railroad Co. v. Coyle, 55 Pa.St. 402; O'Connor v. Railway Co., 27 Minn. 166, 6 N.W. 481; State v. Horan, 32 Minn. 394, 20 N.W. 905; Harriman v. Stowe, 57 Mo. 93; Railroad Co. v. Goddard, 25 Ind. 185; Cleveland v. Newsom, 45 Mich. 62, 7 N.W. 222; Galveston v. Barbour, 62 Tex. 172. Nor is there need of classing the case with Lane v. Bryant, 9 Gray, 245. In point of lapse of time, the case at bar stands rather with Com. v. Hackett, 2 Allen, 136, which, as to lapse of time, substantially overrules Lane v. Bryant, supra.
It is not necessary that, to be a part of the res gestae, declarations should be precisely and astronomically contemporaneous and concurrent in point of time with the principal transaction, but rather that they be made voluntarily, unpremeditatedly, and spontaneously, and under the immediate and unconscious influence of the principal transaction; and be made at such a time, whether contemporaneous and concurrent or not, and also under such circumstances and conditions, as to exclude the idea of deliberate intent or design. Declarations thus naturally growing out of, and truthfully illustrating and explaining, the principal transaction, must, according to the clearest principles of justice, be admissible in evidence; for thus it is clear that the truth can more readily be arrived at. See cases supra; Rockwell v. Taylor, 41 Conn. 56; People v. Vernon, 35 Cal. 49; Mitchum v. State, 11 Ga. 615; O'Shields v. State, 55 Ga. 696; Handy v. Johnson, 5 Md. 450; State v. Garrand, 5 Or. 216; Frink v. Coe, 4 G. Greene, 555; Enos v. Tuttle, 3 Conn. 250; Railroad Co. v. Fay, 16 Ill. 558. "The res gestae are the statements of the cause made by the assured almost contemporaneously with its occurrence." Travelers' Ins. Co. v. Mosley, supra. The admission of such evidence is not error as might be implied from 1 Greenl.Ev. § 108. See Lund v. Tyngsborough, 9 Cush. 41.
Those cases where an appreciable and considerable time had elapsed between the principal event and the declarations in question, or where the declarations were not made in the immediate presence, so to speak, of the events which called them forth, dum fervet opus, and when events were not present, but past, and the person whose declarations are in question had had time and opportunity to collect his thoughts, and to consider and deliberate upon the past events, as, for instance, for months, days, hours, or even minutes, do not and ought not in justice to furnish a rule by which to govern the case at bar. A careful examination of the cases which may be cited on this point by the defendant will show that, as adjudications, they rest principally on the lapse of appreciable time between the principal event and the declarations which relate to it, and are sought to be shown in evidence. When the interval of time is narrowed to hours, the authorities begin to diverge, and, when it is reduced to minutes or seconds, those cases which look only to astronomical lapse of time exclude the evidence; but where, as in the cases supra, an attempt is made to consider and weigh all the conditions, circumstances, and relations of the principal event, and of the declarations relating to it, in order to reach the truth more completely, then the lapse of a few seconds or minutes does not render the declarations inadmissible. See Com. v. McPike, supra; Com. v. Hackett, supra; Insurance Co. v. Mosley, supra; McLeod v. Ginther, 15 Reporter, 13, 80 Ky. 399; Galveston v. Barbour, supra; Mitchell v. State, 71 Ga. 128. The conductor was the defendant's agent, and the exclamation made by him in the case at bar was therefore the admission of the defendant corporation, and necessarily admissible in evidence. It is submitted that the so-called copy of the life insurance policy was inadmissible. In fact the evidence, as presented, was nothing more than the testimony of the witness to the contents of a document which the defendant did not show, that it could not produce if it would.
S. Hoar, for defendant.
The declaration of the conductor was incompetent, and was properly rejected. Lane v. Bryant, 9 Gray, 245; Lund v. Tyngsborough, 9 Cush. 36; Nutting v. Page, 4 Gray, 581; Wesson v. Washburn Iron Co., 13 Allen, 95; Com. v. James, 99 Mass. 438. "It is well settled that, if books and papers necessary as evidence in a court in one state be in the possession of a person living in another state, secondary evidence, without further showing, may be given to prove the contents of such papers, and notice to produce them is unnecessary." Burton v. Driggs, 20 Wall. 125, 134. The copy admitted in evidence in the case at bar, supported by the oath of the agent who made the original, was the best evidence within the jurisdiction of the court, and was properly admitted. Binney v. Russell, 109 Mass. 55; Elwell v. Mersick, 50 Conn. 272; Beattie v. Hilliard, 55 N.H. 428.
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