72 P. 594 | Or. | 1903
after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion.
It is contended by defendant’s counsel that the court erred in instructing the jury as follows:
“The railroad company has a right to locate its road, in a general way, upon any route it may deem fit, but in making a specific location at any particular point it should use due care to provide a safe place for its employés to work; and if it construct its road in a place that is manifestly dangerous, when, with reasonable care and slight expense, it could just as well be constructed in a perfectly safe place, a few feet to one side, that may be negligence*29 which you would have a right to consider in determining the degree of diligence and care defendant should have exercised in watching, inspecting, and protecting its road, and its employes thereon.”
To render the application of this part of the charge intelligible, a brief statement of the facts involved is deemed essential. The bill of exceptions discloses that plaintiff introduced testimony tending to show that the defendant constructed a railway from Goble to Astoria, and operates trains thereon, and also over the line of the Northern Pacific Railway Company from Goble to Portland. The defendant’s road near Bugby, for about half a mile, is built along the south bank of the Columbia River, about ninety feet from a cliff of basaltic rock, the disintegration of which, and the debris carried over the precipice by surface water, formed a slope of about 45 degrees, extending from the face of the crag to a line parallel with, and about six feet from, the track. This incline was originally covered with brush and trees, which were cut down when the railroad was built, and their stumps and roots had rotted. In the rainy season, considerable water flows over the precipice at this point; but, there being no ditch to carry it off, the earth and débris composing the acclivity become saturated therewith. Slides have occurred in the immediate vicinity prior and subsequent to the building of the road, but the defendant made no attempt to carry away the material of the slope, or to build retaining walls. The track walker, whose duty it was to inspect the line near Bugby, was obliged to examine a section of eight miles, and, to avoid being run down, was compelled to start on his velocipede thirty minutes before train time, according to schedule; and as the train was half an hour late on the evening of January 12, 1901, no watchman had passed over the track at that point within an hour of the train’s arrival. Some time after the track walker passed Bugby,
It is argued by defendant’s counsel that the court, in the instruction complained of, told the jury, in effect, that if the defendant could have located its road “ in a perfectly safe place,” but neglected to do so, a higher degree of care in operating it was demanded than in case they should find that such place could not have been discovered “ a few feet to one side”; that, though the defendant might select the location of its road, it exercised the right to do so at its peril, and if a safer route than that chosen could have been discovered, but was not found, a different measure of care was required “in watching, inspecting, aiid protecting its road and employés ”; that the degree of care imposed upon the defendant depended upon the wisdom exercised in locating its road ; and that a jury, and not a railroad company, are the judges of where a line of railway shall be specifically located. Plaintiff’s counsel maintain, however, that the exceptions taken to the instructions were general, and did not point out any particular part thereof of 'which the defendant complained, and that the charge should be considered in its entirety, and, when so construed, any seeming inconsistency therein is rendered harmless.
In view of a new trial, it is deemed proper at this time to consider other alleged errors which it is claimed by defendant’s counsel the court committed.
In Boyle v. State, 57 Wis. 472 (15 N. W. 827, 46 Am. Rep. 41), one Dr. Cody, in answer to a hypothetical question, was permitted, over objection and exception, to state that in his opinion a certain person had died from asphyxia; saying, however, that his conclusion was based
In Soquet v. State, 72 Wis. 659 (40 N. W. 391), it was held, however, that a physician could not testify as an expert as to symptoms of arsenical poisoning, if his knowledge of the subject had been obtained wholly from medical or scientific books or medical instruction, and not from per
A text writer, discussing this subject, says: “Even by those courts who have been most resolute in excluding such works when offered substantively, it is agreed that an expert may show that his views are sustained by standard authorities in his profession”: Wharton, Evidence, § 438. This author further says: “It has, indeed,been held that an expert, when called to state the sense of his profession on a particular topic, may cite authorities as agreeing with him”: Wharton, Evidence, § 666. Professor Lawson, in his work on Expert & Opinion Evidence (2 ed. p. 176), says: “ Notwithstanding the inadmissibility of the books, the opinions contained in them may go to the jury through the mouth of a witness — an expert.” It will be generally admitted that standard works on civil engineering are treatises that relate more nearly to matters of an exact science than do medical books ; but whether excerpts from the former can be read to corroborate the opinion of an expert witness, it is not necessary to inquire, for the ques
Reversed.