Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/278/278mass101.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:33:50+00:00

Document:
PATRICK H. KELLEY, administrator, vs. JORDAN MARSH COMPANY.
Present: RUGG, C.J., WAIT, SANDERSON, & FIELD, JJ.
The burden of proving the preliminary facts necessary to the admission of the declarations of a deceased person under G. L. c. 233, s. 65, is upon the party offering such declarations in evidence.
The general rule is that findings by a trial judge concerning such preliminary facts must stand unless they involve some error of law or are unsupported by the evidence heard by the judge.
(3) The findings by the judge were warranted by the testimony and were untainted by error of law; and they must stand.
A judge, hearing a motion for a new trial of an action, cannot be required to pass upon requests for rulings as to matters which might have been raised at the trial, but in his discretion he may pass upon such requests.
(3) The plaintiff's contention was not aided by the circumstances that the defendant introduced the record and did not seek to limit its probative force.
TORT for the conscious suffering and death of the plaintiff's intestate. Writ dated April 5, 1928.
The action was tried in the Superior Court before Sisk, J. Material evidence, including evidence heard by the judge in the absence of the jury on the question of the admissibility of declarations by the intestate, is stated in the opinion. The judge found that such declarations were not made in good faith upon the intestate's own knowledge, and excluded them; and ordered a verdict for the defendant. He subsequently denied a motion by the plaintiff for a new trial. The plaintiff alleged exceptions.
P. H. Kelley, for the plaintiff.
E. J. Sullivan, (C. B. Barnes, Jr., with him,) for the defendant.
building." It appeared from the evidence of a sergeant of police that, although it was his duty under the rules of the police department, and perhaps that of the other police officers, to make a report concerning the accident, no report was made by him. No such report was made by any,of three such officers who assisted the intestate after her injury prior to the arrival of the ambulance. A report was made by an officer who came with the ambulance and went in it to the hospital with the intestate. It is not necessary to narrate or further to summarize the testimony on which the finding of the judge was made. It was admitted by the defendant for the purposes of the trial that the intestate was in its store on the afternoon in question to the time of the accident; that she was injured and suffered and that her death resulted from the injury; that a witness to be called by the plaintiff would testify that about five hours. before the accident to the intestate a woman passed through the revolving door of the defendant's store in question, and "that it then behaved in the same manner in which" the plaintiff contended "that it behaved at the time of this accident and that she was thrown out to the sidewalk to the curbstone," and that proof would be presented by the plaintiff that three days after the accident to the intestate witnesses examined the door and found it defective so that its revolution was impeded.
of these police officers placing her down by the police box and the distance between that police box and the southern side of that entrance to that store shows that either that she walked there or was carried there, on the evidence" a woman of her age and weight with a broken hip "couldn't walk there and there is no pretence that she did, no evidence, nothing to indicate that she walked or left the place where she fell until she was carried into the store."
Before declarations of a deceased person rightly can be admitted under G. L. c. 233, s. 65, the trial judge must make a preliminary finding of the existence of the facts which alone render such declarations admissible. The burden of proving these precedent facts is upon the party who offers such declarations in evidence. Confessedly the declarations here offered in evidence were made before the commence,ment of the action. That underlying fact need not be further considered. Another of these essential facts was that the declarations were made in good faith. The judge must find this fact to exist or the declarations must be excluded. Carroll v. Boston Elevated Railway, 210 Mass. 500. Horan v. Boston Elevated Railway, 237 Mass. 245, 247. Crowley v. O'Donnell, 238 Mass. 475. Declarations of a deceased person, to be admissible under the statute, must also relate to facts within the personal knowledge of the declarant. That is another fact to be proved to the reasonable satisfaction of the trial judge before such declaration can be admitted in evidence. This express requirement of the words of said s. 65 has been emphasized in the decisions. Little v. Massachusetts Northeastern Street Railway, 223 Mass. 501. Eldridge v. Barton, 232 Mass. 183, 187. Warren v. Decoste, 269 Mass. 415, 419.
judge of their capacity to comprehend that which was originally heard and to report it with reliable accuracy, and upon his conclusion as to the knowledge of the declarant and all the factors bearing upon his understanding, honesty of purpose, and faculty of correctly stating the facts. In short, the action of the trial judge rests upon circumstances which cannot be reflected with reasonable precision upon the printed page. A finding of that nature ordinarily will stand as conclusive in an action at law if there is any evidence to support it. Moss v. Old Colony Trust Co. 246 Mass. 139, 143. It can rarely be ruled as matter of law that the burden of proof has been sustained. McDonough v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. 228 Mass. 450, 452. Even in equity, where the finding of the fact finding tribunal is not reversed unless plainly wrong, a finding like that here assailed will not commonly be reversed, even upon a full report of the evidence, by this court in the performance of its duty to examine the evidence and to decide the case according to its judgment, giving only due weight to, the action of the trial tribunal. Berman v. Coakley, 257 Mass. 159.
where the intestate was first seen by any of those called as witnesses, indicating that the fall had no connection with the door of the defendant. The evidence of another group of witnesses tended to show such declarations to the effect that a person or persons behind her in the door caused it to revolve too rapidly and thus she was thrown to the sidewalk and injured. In those circumstances there would be no liability on the part of the defendant. Buzzell v. R. H. White Co. 220 Mass. 129. The evidence of a third group of witnesses tended to show such declarations indicating some trouble with the operation of the door and that thereby the intestate was thrown with violence and injured. That evidence was supported to some extent by the admission of the defendant as to testimony concerning the defective condition of the door. It would be only upon this theory that liability could be fastened on the defendant. Norton v. Chandler & Co. Inc. 221 Mass. 99. Nersiff v. Worcester County Institution for Savings, 264 Mass. 228. It is manifest that in this state of the testimony the question for the trial judge was purely one of fact. Its decision depended on observation of witnesses and the weighing of oral evidence. His findings have been set out in full. There is nothing to indicate that he violated any rule of law in reaching his conclusion, that he did not give fair, impartial and just weight to the testimony of the several witnesses, that he failed to draw proper inferences from all that was proved, or that any error was made requiring a reversal of his decision. There was ample evidence to support his determination. Commonwealth v. Russ, 232 Mass. 58, 69. Brown v. Little, Brown & Co. (Inc.) 269 Mass. 102, 106.
department, did not require disbelief of their testimony. They still might be telling the truth.
It has not been argued and could not be successfully contended that, apart from the declarations of the intestate, there was evidence tending to show that her injury and death resulted from negligence of the defendant.
The plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for a new trial based wholly upon errors alleged to have occurred at the trial. At the hearing upon this motion numerous requests for rulings of law were presented. The motion was taken under advisement by the trial judge and later denied, and all requests for rulings were refused. The questions of law thus sought to be raised might all have been presented at the trial on the merits. The trial judge could not have been required to pass upon such questions of law on a motion for a new trial. In the case at bar he appears to have received and dealt with the requests for rulings. That was within his discretion. The case will be considered on that footing. Lonergan v. American Railway Express Co. 250 Mass. 30, 38-39, and cases collected. Harvard Trust Co. v. Cambridge, 270 Mass. 403, 409.
There is no ground for the contention that the police officers ought to have been disbelieved. There is no foundation for the argument that they had been guilty of despoiling, suppressing or concealing evidence. A mere violation of duty in failing to make a report does not destroy their value as witnesses even if it be assumed, which is not clear, that the rule of the police department required a report from each officer and would not have been satisfied by the report of one, The credibility and weight of their testimony were entirely for the trial judge, who appears to have thought them not unworthy of belief. Commonwealth v. Billings, 97 Mass. 405, 406. Commonwealth v. Snow, 111 Mass. 411, 417. Weir's Case, 252 Mass. 236, 238. Requests for rulings grounded on the action and testimony of the police officers and the weight to be attributed to evidence coming from them were denied rightly.
force to entries in hospital records which as to their admissibility and evidentiary value depend upon other provisions of the statutes. It was not intended thereby to clothe entries in hospital records with a competency to any other extent or in any other way than that provided by G. L. c. 233, s. 65. The two sections are in the same chapter. They must be interpreted, if reasonably practicable, so as to constitute an harmonious and consistent body of law. Brooks v. Fitchburg & Leominster Street Railway, 200 Mass. 8, 18. Tillson v. Springfield, 258 Mass. 72. The final clause of s. 79, to the effect that entries in such hospital records shall not be competent upon the question of liability, forbids the use of declarations of deceased persons in the way here urged. Hospital records do not become admissible as general public records to any greater or other extent than permitted by said s. 79. Incompetent evidence introduced in evidence without Objection is entitled to its probative force. Ferris v. Ray Taxi Service Co. 259 Mass. 401. That principle does not aid the plaintiff in the circumstances here disclosed. As already pointed out, this hospital record and the supporting testimony of the hospital physician were offered and received for consideration by the trial judge under said s. 65. They have no further scope or effect.
The defendant was not bound by this evidence merely because it introduced the hospital record. A party calling witnesses or offering evidence does not become fettered thereby. It was at liberty thereafter to take any position with respect to the facts as its view of the weight of the evidence required. Newman v. Levinson, 266 Mass. 264, 267. Haun v. LeGrand, 268 Mass. 582, 584, and cases there collected.
It is not necessary to consider in further detail the requests for rulings. Most, if not all, of those argued have been discussed. Those not argued are treated as waived. They have all been examined with care. There was no error in denying them.
basis for a claim that there has been abuse of discretion in the case at bar. Davis v. Boston Elevated Railway, 235 Mass. 482, 496-497. Energy Electric Co., petitioner, 262 Mass. 534, 538. Vengrow v. Grimes, 274 Mass. 278.

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