Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Morain

Citations

• 140 Ill. 117
• 29 N.E. 869

Syllabus

<p>1. Witness — impeaching—-contradicting immaterial evidence. If a party, on cross-examination, draws out immaterial matters, it is not competent for him to contradict the statements of the witness so drawn out, by way of impeachment.</p> <p>2. On the trial of an action against a railroad company for an injury to the plaintiff in alighting from a train, the plaintiff, on cross-examination, stated that he was hot out of the cars between two stations named, and was not on the platform at an intermediate station. The court refused to allow a witness of the defendant to testify that he saw plaintiff get off the train at such intermediate station on the evening he was injured, and remain off until the train had started, and then run alongside of it and climb on while it was in motion : Held, that the refused testimony was inadmissible as primary evidence, as it tended to raise a collateral and immaterial issue, and that it was not competent as impeaching testimony, as the matter sought to be contradicted was immaterial, and drawn out by the defendant on cross-examination.</p> <p>3. Hegmgence—question of due care—instruction. In an action to recover damages for a personal injury resulting from negligence, an instruction for the plaintiff which omits to state, as a condition precedent to the right of recovery, that the plaintiff, at the time of the injury, was in the exercise of ordinary care, is such an error as to require a reversal, unless the defect is supplied in other instructions, or it appears that the defendant was not injured thereby.</p> <p>4. But when the requirement of ordinary care on the part of the plaintiff is correctly stated in a subsequent instruction for the plaintiff, and in several instructions for the defendant, thus supplementing and explaining the defective instruction, and there is no conflict in the series of instructions, which, as a whole, stated the law fully and fairly and the attention of the jury by a special interrogatory is called to th