Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis Electric Railroad v. Faulkner ex rel. Bond

Citations

• 137 Md. 451

Syllabus

<p>Street Railways — Accident at Crossing — Last Clear Chance— — Impeaching One’s Own Witness — Hospital Record— Harmless Error — Exception to Prayers.</p> <p>In an action on account of injuries caused by an accident at a street crossing, which occurred about the middle of the day, error in allowing a witness to be asked whether defendant company had not had a watchman at this crossing, was harmless in view of the answer that it had done so only in the evenings under special circumstances not existing at the time of the accident.</p> <p>That the hospital record of plaintiff’s case was admitted for the purpose of showing his temperature while at the hospital did not render admissible another part of such record which purported, as part of the “history” of the ease, to state the way in which the accident occurred.</p> <p>Where a witness has made to a party, or to his attorney, who calls him, a statement totally variant from his sworn testimony, and on the faith of such statement he has been called, he may be asked if he made such statement and, if he denies it, that he did make it may be proved by anyone who heard him do so.</p> <p>'That plaintiff, in questioning witnesses called by him for the purpose of showing that another witness called by him made, before the trial, a statement to plaintiff’s counsel not in accord with his testimony, did not strictly limit his examination of the former witnesses to the questions asked the latter witness, and to the statement made to counsel, held not cause for reversal on defendant’s appeal, the obvious purpose and only effect of the evidence being to show- why plaintiff had called the latter witness.</p> <p>That a witness was allowed to state what one of plaintiff’s witnesses had repeated to plaintiff’s counsel, before the trial, as having been said to him by another of plaintiff’s witnesses, about testifying in the case, although inadmissible as hearsay, held harmless in view of the fact that such statement did not contradict t