16 Utah 366 | Utah | 1898
This action was brought to recover damages claimed to have been sustained by the plaintiff while working in defendant’s mine in April, 1896. The plaintiff and one Fowler had worked a room about 20 feet wide into a coal. vein, and were working in a cross-cut about 25 feet wide at the time of the accident. They were paid by the ton. The company furnished the timbers, and they were re
If it was material for the plaintiff to show that eight men were injured while working in the mine during the eight years the forman had charge of it, as bearing upon the degree or extent of the defendant’s negligence during that period, it was equally competent for the defense to show on cross-examination by the witness how many men in all were employed in the mine as bearing upon the per cent of accidents or injury to them as compared with the number employed. The admission of testimony showing how many men had been injured in the mine during the time the witness had been foreman being improper, the testimony offered showing the number of men employed during that time would also be improper.
Plaintiff was also allowed, under objection that it was incompetent and irrelevant, to testify to a conversation
Tbe rule as announced in Culmer v. Clift is the general rule. This rule is subject to the exception that, if the evidence is clearly inadmissible for any purpose, a general objection will be sufficient. The inadmissibility of this evidence was apparent, on its face. Under such circumstances the court is not obliged to cast about and hunt up a ground for excluding it. The objection that it was not proper cross-examination was sufficiently explicit. 8 Enc. Pl. & Prac. 228; Nightingale v. Scannell, 18 Cal. 315; Brumley v. Flint, 87 Cal. 471; Alcorn v. Railway Co. (Mo. Sup.), 16 S. W. 229; Hodges v. Hodges (N. C.), 11 S. E. 364; Railway Co. v. Street (Ark.), 31 S. W. 571; King v. Nichols (Minn.), 55 N. W. 607; Dooley v. Moan, 11 N. Y. Sup. 339; Rush v. French (Ariz.), 25 Pac. 816; McDermott v. Judy, 67 Mo. App. 647; State v. Soule, 14 Nev. 453.
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the cause is remanded, with directions to the court below to vacate and set aside the judgment, and grant a new trial.