Willis v. Atlantic & Danville Railroad

Citations

• 29 S.E. 941
• 122 N.C. 905
• 1898 N.C. LEXIS 370

Syllabus

<p>■Action for Damages — Issues—Trial—Non-suit on Plaintiff’s Evidence — Hinsdale’s Act — Instructions—Evi-den ce — Railroads—Personal Injuries — Negligence.</p> <p>1. Where the issues submitted by the Court on the trial of an action were those properly arising on the pleadings and every phase oí the contentions of the parties could be presented thereon, it was not error to refuse to submit others tendered by the defendant.</p> <p>2. It was not the intention of effect of the passage of Chapter 109, Acts of 1897, to deprive parties of the right of trial by jury in cases where there is any evidence or to make the weight and effect of the evidence always a question of law for the courts.</p> <p>3. In the trial of a civil action for damages where negligence was alleged it was not error to refuse an instruction that “when the minds of the jury are in doubt they must find for the defendant.” Such instruction would not be proper even in the trial of a criminal action in which it is only when there is no reasonable doubt that the jury should find against the defendant.</p> <p>4. In the trial of an action for damages for personal injuries, where negligence was alleged and contributory negligence was relied upon as a defence, a prayer for an instruction that “the plaintiff would not be entitled to recover” was properly refused since it asked for no instruction as to an issue or issues and also because it left out of consideration the question whether notwithstanding the plaintiff’s contributory negligence (if there was such) the defendant might not have avoided the injury by reasonable care.</p> <p>5. In the trial of an action against a railroad company for personal injuries, defendant’s request for instruction which assumed that its rules and regulations were in evidence though defendant had failed to produce them when asked to put them in evidence, and where the testimony of witnesses differed from the facts as recited in the request, was properly refused.</p> <p>6. A regul