Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Springfield & Northwestern Railroad

Citations

• 67 Ill. 142

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence—opinion of witnesses. It is competent for experts, such, as engineers, to give their opinions in respect to matters which may form the proper ingredients of a verdict, but it is not competent to ask the 'opinion of witnesses in such a way as to cover the very question to be found by the jury. The admission of such testimony is nothing more nor less than permitting the witnesses to usurp the province of the jury.</p> <p>2. Same—none but experts are competent to give opinion. But, even in such cases where an opinion is admissible, it must be shown that the witness was competent to give the same.</p> <p>3. Same—assessment of damages for right of way. On the assessment of damages in a proceeding for the right of way by one railroad company through the right of way of another company, which made it necessary to cut through a heavy embankment twenty feet below the grade of the road of the defendant, and thus remove the support of the latter road for the longitudinal space of sixty feet, while the road of the latter was in operation, the plaintiff company, after proving, by one of its contractors, that he proposed to support defendant’s track with timbers which he described, asked the witness, “If you put in the cut the work you propose to do and have described, what would be the damages to the defendant ?” He answered, “There would be no damages.” The defendant objected to the testimony: Reid, that the evidence was improper, upon the ground that the question called for the mere opinion of the witness upon the assumption that the plaintiff would put in the supports for the defendant’s track when in nowise obligated to do so, and also because it was an opinion covering the very question to be settled by the jury.</p> <p>4. Assessment op damages for right of way—evidence. In the same case the plaintiff asked the witness, “Do you expect to keep the work in repair?” The defendant objected to the question, but the court permitted the witness to answer, and he sai