Valdejuly v. Porto Rico Railway, Light & Power Co.
Valdejuly v. Porto Rico Railway, Light & Power Co.
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Action for damages founded on the alleged negligent starting of a car, from which the complainant was alighting. The ’defense was a general denial with the positive assertion that the fall and consequent damage to the complainant was due to her weak and swooning state, as admitted by her to the agents of the defendant. At the hearing in this court there was an attack also on the credibility of complainant’s witnesses.
At the trial one of the main efforts of the defendant was to show that the complainant’s fall happened before the car came to a full stop at Stop 15 on the principal carretera of San Juan. On this point, if the case were submitted to us on first instance, we should have no hestitation in finding immediately that the strong preponderance of the evidence is in favor of the complainant. At the hearing in this court and in- the brief of the appellant one of the eye-witnesses for the complainant was attacked principally because he said he boarded the car at Stop 26 on the carretera, where he lived, when the undisputed fact is that a “Park” car, which only turns into the carretera at Stop 23, bore the complainant. When months after an event a witness who has the habit of taking a car at a particular spot is mistaken on a special occasion, this mistake might affect the weight of his testimony on other particulars, but it could not affect his credibility, and his mistake, for us, would go a very little way in destroying his statement that he got off the car immediately ahead of the complainant, who followed him. Very frequently, in any city a man will walk towards the spot where a,branch line turns into the main line in order to have a greater chance of promptly catching a car. The witness was cross-examined as to other parts of his testimony, but his attention was not especially drawn to this mistake. This was not the sole reason for impugning the witness, but it was
On the question of the dizziness or swooning of the complainant, there is more force in defendant's theory. We think it is possible that at some point before the moment of striking the earth the complainant became unconscious; that the way she fell may have been particularly due to dizziness. It is not beyond belief, either, that in talking to the agents of the defendant she blamed her fall on herself. The company’s agents, from such statements, would naturally be entirely skeptical of all of complainant’s witnesses. And in this way it is not necessary to doubt any of the statements of the more responsible witnesses of the defendant. As to the apparent physical difficulty, testified to by Dr. G-lines, of the fall having happened in the way the witnesses described, such an incongruity is very frequent in accident trials. This kind of confusion, disparity, and conflict is for the trier.
There is another possible theory of the case that would differ slightly from any of those advanced in the record or at the hearing. There were indications in the testimony that the complainant arose to get off the car considerably in advance of reaching Stop 15 and stood behind the motorman.
We find no error and the judgment must be
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.