162 Pa. 525 | Pa. | 1894
Opinion by
The plaintiff has a life estate in a house and lot in Tjwone township, Fayette county, which she occupied in 1891 as a residence. The unincumbered fee cost and is said now to be worth about one thousand dollars. The defendant is the owner
The first assignment of error is also sustained. A witness who had seen the premises but once while the ovens were in operation, and then only as a traveler along the highway, was not qualified to speak of the effect of the smoke and dust upon the inmates of the house, or of the extent to which the house was made untenantable thereby.
The ninth assignment would alone require a reversal of this judgment. To submit such testimony as that given by the witnesses Strickler and Sproat to the jury without a word of caution was grave error. One of these witnesses estimated the loss to the holder of a life estate during less than one year at a sum some fifteen times greater than the entire value of the property. An estimate so utterly absurd was worthless as evidence upon the subject of the plaintiff’s actual loss, and the jury should have been carefully instructed upon that subject.
The judgment is reversed for the reasons now given and a venire facias de novo awarded.