Case ID: nh_59/html/0286-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Foster, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Griffin v. Auburn.
    Evidence immaterial on the question of damages, and not of such a character as to prejudice the jury against the plaintiff, cannot avail to set aside a verdict rendered in his favor, on the ground that the damages were too small.
    Hearsay evidence of the declarations of jurors, as to how they determined the amount of their verdict, is inadmissible to impeach their verdict.
    Case, for injuries on a highway leading from Chester to Auburn village. It appeared that the plaintiff’s sons, Willard and, John, lived with their father at the time of the accident, and have since; that when the horses came home, they immediately harnessed one of them and started for their father, and, finding him injured in the highway, took him home. Willard Griffin, a witness for the plaintiff, testified in substance that he went to the place of accident the next morning; that he examined the place, and followed the wheel-track to the tree against which the plaintiff’s wagon struck, and beyond, towards Leach hill, to the Emery bridge; that the track was out of the road some of the way, but was straight and not zigzag; that he had never said to any one that the traces became unhitched coming down the Leach hill. Subject to the plaintiff’s exception, the defendants were permitted to prove that Willard Griffin said that the traces became unhitched' coming down the1 Leach hill. John Griffin, a witnesss for the plaintiff, testified that' he helped his father harness the horses when he started, and that the harnesses and wagon were all right, and that the horses were harnessed right. Subject to the plaintiff’s exception, Sebastian Griffin, a witness for the defendants, was allowed to testify that after the accident the plaintiff told him to say to John that he must look out for the horses, as they were restive; that he told John, and John replied that if his father had let the harness alone he would not have got hurt. Verdict for the plaintiff. In a hearing, on a motion by the plaintiff to set aside the verdict because-the jurors considered the question of costs in determining the-amount of their verdict, the court rejected evidence of the sayings of jurors after they had rendered their verdict and been discharged for the term.
    
      Stevens, Cross, and Frink, for the plaintiff.
    
      Marston, Hatch, and Fellows, for the defendants.
   Foster, J.

The jury, having returned a verdict for the plaintiff, found that a defect in the defendants’ highway was the cause of damage to the plaintiff, without any contributory negligence on his part. The testimony of Willard, John, and Sebastian Griffin, if competent, bore, not on the question of damages, but on the question of the defendants’ liability. It is therefore unnecessary to consider whether it was competent or not. Being immaterial on the question of damages, and not being of such a character as to prejudice the jury against the plaintiff, it cannot avail to set aside the verdict on the ground that the damages may be too small. Page v. Parker, 40 N. H. 47, 64; Cook v. Brown, 34 N. H. 460.

The testimony of jurors is inadmissible to impeach their verdict; and still more so must be the hearsay evidence of their declarations' as to the manner of their reaching a verdict. Leighton v. Sargent, 31 N. H. 119; State v. Ayer, 23 N. H. 301.

Judgment on the verdict.

Bingham, Smith, and Clark, JJ., did not sit: the others concurred.