Smith v. Philadelphia Traction Co.

Citations

• 202 Pa. 54
• 51 A. 345
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 462

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Master and servant — Sanding tracks.</p> <p>A street railway company cannot be charged with negligence in giving up the use of sand boxes on its cars because the wheels of the cars had been flattened by that method of sanding the tracks, and substituting another. system by which a man was placed on the tracks with sand to use where needed, where there is no evidence whatever that the new system was not efficient, or that it was accompanied with danger. If under the new system the man in charge of the sand neglects to place the sand on the track, and an employee of the company is injured, the injury is due to the negligence of a fellow servant, and the injured man cannot recover from the company.</p> <p>Evidence— Cross-examination — Negligence—Street raihvays.</p> <p>While it is true that cross-examination should be confined to the matters upon which a witness is examined in chief, and a defendant will not be permitted to bring out new matter constituting his defense by cross-examining the plaintiff’s witnesses, yet it is equally true that, when the cross-examination is germane to what is inquired into in chief, or tends to elicit facts which the plaintiff ought to have brought out as part of the case, and which the court and jury should have known from him and his witnesses, the defendant should be allowed to develop what is withheld intentionally, or otherwise.</p> <p>In an action by a conductor against an electric railway company, his employer, to recover damages for personal injuries, where a witness testifies that the accident was caused by reason of the fact that the company had removed sand boxes from the cars, and had refused to supply sand on the cars, the defendant may be permitted on cross-examination of the witness to show that the company after abandoning the use of sand boxes on the cars had- substituted another system by which a man was put on the tracks to place sand on the streets wherever needed.</p>