Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Artery

Citations

• 137 U.S. 507
• 11 S. Ct. 129
• 34 L. Ed. 747
• 1890 U.S. LEXIS 2114

Syllabus

<p>Section 1307 of the Code of Iowa of 1873 in regard ‘to the liability of a railway corporation for damages to its employes in consequence of 'the neglect of their coemployés, in connection with the use and operation of the railway, construed.</p> <p>The decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa as to the statute,.reviewed.</p> <p>An injury sustained by an employé while riding on a car propelled by hand-power, through the negligence of a coemployé riding on the same car, is one sustained in connection with the use and operation of the railway, within section 1307.</p> <p>If a witness is to be impeached, in consequence of his having made, on some other occasion, different statements, oral or written, from those which he makes on the Witness stand, as to material points in the case, his attention must first be called, on cross-examination, to the particular time and occasion when, the place where, and the person to whom he made the varying statements.</p> <p>The Circuit Court erred in laying it down as a rule, that a written statement signed by a witness and admitted by him to have been so signed, could not be used in cross-examining him as to material points testified to by him; and in announcing it as a further rule, that the only way to impeach a witness by showing contradictory statements made by him, is to call as a witness the person to whom or in whose presence the alleged contradictory statements were made.</p> <p>The rule of evidence, that if, on cross-examination, a witness admits a letter to be in his handwriting, he cannot be questioned by counsel as to whether statements, such as the counsel may suggest, are contained in it, but the whole letter must be read as the evidence of the existence of the statements, does not apply to the present case, because the opposite party did not take tlie objection that the whole statement was not, but should have been, read as evidence, and the court, with his assent, excluded it from being read in evidence.</p>