Hazlitt v. Dewlow

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The plaintiff was a passenger in a taxicab which had a collision with a private automobile at the intersection of Franklin and. Eutaw Streets in the City of Baltimore. For personal injuries alleged to have been suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the collision, this suit was brought jointly against the corporate proprietor of the taxicab and the owner of the other car, who was driving it at the time of the accident.

Each of the operators testified that his car was standing still when the collision occurred. According to the individual defendant’s version, he had stopped his automobile in the intersection to allow safe passage for a pedestrian, and while thus stationary his car was struck by the taxicab coming rapidly from the right. The driver of the taxicab stated in his testimony that as he drove into the intersection from the west he slowed down and stopped the cab because he saw the ⁴⁰¹ other car approaching rapidly from the north, and that its running board ran against his front bumper. It was testified by the plaintiff that she did not observe how the accident happened, but that the driver of the taxicab said at the time of the impact: “My brakes wouldn’t hold.” There was a denial by him that he made such a statement to the plaintiff, or to the occupants of the other car, who, in-their testimony, attributed to him similar admissions as to the brakes.

The evidence was conflicting as to their actual condition. Neither of the colliding cars was more than slightly damaged, and there was evidence tending to prove that the plaintiff was at that time apparently uninjured. The case was submitted to the jury, whose verdict was in favor of both defendants. Exceptions taken by the plaintiff at the trial present for our decision certain questions as to the admissibility of evidence and as to rulings on the prayers.

The first three exceptions relate to questions allowed by the trial court to be asked during the cross-examination of Dr. Sullivan, who had testified in chief, as a witness for the plaintiff, that she had a sacroiliac strain, a slight deviation of the coccyx, and neuritis in her left shoulder, which conditions “would be the natural and probable result of a person falling upon the floor of a taxicab in the sort of a jolt she described.” The witness, having referred to a written report made to him by Dr. Lenhard, to whom he had taken the plaintiff for an examination about eighteen months after the accident, was asked whether Dr. Len-hard’s report did not describe her coccyx as being “in normal position, tilted slightly forward.” After answering the question in the affirmative, Dr. Sullivan was asked if there was any difference between his own impression and Dr. Lenhard’s report. The reply was, “None whatever.” The next inquiry was whether the report did not say that there was no “limitation of the movements of the back or joints.” Quoting from the report, the witness answered: “She has no restriction of back movement.” It appeared on Dr. Sullivan’s redirect examination that the report by Dr. Lenhard referred to an X-ray picture ⁴⁰² of the plaintiff’s back which showed “a little deviation of the coccyx to the left.” Subsequently the plaintiff called Dr. Lenhard as a witness, and proved by him observations and conclusions in substantial accord, with those indicated in his report, to which the cross-examination of Dr. Sullivan had referred. In view of the evidence thus adduced by the plaintiff, we are unable to find any ground of reversal in the first, second, or third exception. While testifying in chief as a witness for the plaintiff, Dr. Lenhard was asked whether she had described to him the accident in which she was alleged to have been injured, and had stated to him that she had then received a blow on the lower part of her back.

Exceptions 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 were taken because of the court’s refusal to permit such inquiries. It was not permissible for the plaintiff to prove her own narration of the circumstances under which the accident occurred. But in the further course of Dr. Lenhard’s examination in chief, reference was made without objection to the injuries complained of as having resulted from the accident described by the plaintiff in her testimony. There is in this group of exceptions no reason for reversal.

Because certain questions propounded in chief to Dr. Lenhard were held by the trial court to be improper in form, the ninth and tenth exceptions were reserved. But the object of those inquiries was fully served by an interrogatory which the court formulated. Exception No. 11 was abandoned at the argument. A witness