259 Pa. 262 | Pa. | 1918
Opinion by
The plaintiff, a man fifty-six years of age, had been a coal miner for upwards of thirty years. When injured
The errors assigned are fourteen in number. They may be compressed within narrower limit. Fully a half dozen of the assignments complain of undue latitude allowed in the testimony of the plaintiff himself when on the stand, special reference being to so much of the testimony as related to the wages he had earned when engaged as a coal miner four months before his injury; to his testimony that his purpose at the time of the injury was to resume work as a miner when opportunity afforded ; to his explanation of the fact that he was working for a much less wage when injured than that he was accustomed to receive as miner, and that but for the injury he received, he could readily earn at mining from six to eight dollars a day. These assignments rest on tech
Another assignment complains of the refusal of the court to allow on cross-examination the plaintiff to be inquired of with respect to the medical and-surgical treatment he received, if any, immediately following upon his injury. Plaintiff was injured January 1,1915. He testified that he first consulted a physician during the following June, who simply advised the use of a rubber supporter, which he thereafter did use, and that he exhibited his injured limb to no other professional person for a year thereafter, and then not for advice or treatment, but In the preparation of his case for trial. Counsel for defendant proposed to ask the witness where he resided at the time of his accident, whether or not he had a family physician, and whether he had consulted him as to his injury at any time. This was objected to on the ground of immateriality and the objection was sustained. The question was- entirely proper. The plaintiff having testified as to the extent and character of his injuries, the pain and suffering he' endured, the defendant had a right on cross-examination to get from him the fullest particulars, both as to what he did and what he failed to do to obtain relief and improvement. This assignment is sustained.
' Still another complains of the admission of. the testimony of the two witnesses, Dinninger and Troup, as to the method here adopted of maintaining an uncovered hole such as this was, between the rails of a track on which the loaded cars were pushed from the mouth of the pit to the check house, whether the same was customary and usual in like places of work. This objection should
The affirmance of plaintiff’s second point as to the applicability of the Act of June 2, 1913, P. L. 396, to this action, as qualified by the court, was without prejudice to the defendant. Without this, it is so unrelated to anything suggested in appellant’s statement of question involved that it calls for no consideration here, and this assignment of error is therefore dismissed: Smith v. The Lehigh V. R. R. Co., 232 Pa. 456.
The judgment is reversed and a venire facias de novo is awarded.