Wagner v. Farmers & Merchants Insurance
Wagner v. Farmers & Merchants Insurance
Opinion of the Court
Action for injuries sustained by plaintiff while entering and being carried in an elevator in defendant’s building. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals.
Two errors only are relied upon for a reversal: “First. Whether the plaintiff is entitled to recover on the facts.
In support of the first assignment it is said: “We are not asking the court to draw a different conclusion from facts than the jury drew; we are insisting that the jury disregarded the truth and the facts; that the account by the plaintiff of the manner in which he received the injury for which he recovered a verdict in this action is not only false, but impossible.” The brief states that the jury saw the elevator, and suggests that “as it (the elevator) is only a little distance from the state capítol building, and could not well be attached to the record, we suggest the propriety of an inspection by your honors, for.there has been no substantial change in the situation since the accident.” We think we will have to decline the invitation to inspect the elevator, and rest the inspection upon that made by the jury. We will not extend this opinion by extensively setting out the evidence. It is sufficient to say that it is conflicting. Plaintiff testified that as he was in the act of entering the elevator with his left foot forward, and before he had taken his right foot from the hall floor, the elevator started down; that his right leg was caught by the top of the elevator door and was dragged downward between the elevator and the elevator shaft until the elevator reached an open space below, which released his leg from its imprisonment. The evidence of the physician, introduced by the defendant, is that it would have been impossible for plaintiff’s leg to have been drawn through between the iron top of the door frame and the edge of the building without crushing the leg very badly and breaking the bones, and that he did not find upon plaintiff’s leg enough of a scrape or scratch or bruise to leave a scar after it was cured. This testimony standing alone would, it is true, cast discredit upon plaintiff’s testimony; but the jury heard plaintiff’s description of the accident, and viewed the elevator and the elevator space referred to, and we cannot say that the inspection of these twelve
The eighth instruction reads: “You are instructed that if you find that the elevator was stopped on the second floor at the place where the plaintiff was waiting, and in response to his signal, and the door thereof was opened by defendant’s servant in charge of such elevator, and that, while plaintiff was in the act of entering, the elevator was started by defendant’s servants, and by reason thereof plaintiff was injured, as alleged in his petition, this would be presumptive evidence of negligence upon the part of defendant, so far as such negligence is alleged in plaintiff’s petition, to be overcome only by evidence which would show that the defendant was not in fault, or that the accident was due to plaintiff’s own negligence or that his own negligence contributed thereto.” It is said in the brief: “This instruction is vicious and prejudicial because it gave undue prominence to the plaintiff’s theory of the case. It referred, the jury to the contention of the plaintiff stated in his petition, and practically informs them that there was competent evidence tending to show negligence, and that such evidence creates a presumption of negligence which is to be ‘overcome only,’ said the court, ‘by evidence
' We think both of the errors assigned by counsel must be decided adversely to its contention. The judgment of the district court is therefore
Affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- William A. Wagner v. Farmers & Merchants Insurance Company
- Status
- Published