Case Name: Ann Maria Winters, Individually and as Executrix, Respondent, v. The Manhattan Railway Co. et al., Appellants. (Two-cases.)
Court: New York Superior Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1895-12
Citations: 15 Misc. 8
Docket Number: 
Parties: Ann Maria Winters, Individually and as Executrix, Respondent, v. The Manhattan Railway Co. et al., Appellants. (Two-cases.)
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 15
Pages: 8–9

Head Matter:
Ann Maria Winters, Individually and as Executrix, Respondent, v. The Manhattan Railway Co. et al., Appellants. (Two-cases.)
(New York Superior Court — General Term,
December, 1895.)
Railroads Elevated— Evidence.
In an action against an elevated railway for injunctive relief and damage, evidence as to the rents Of other buildings on the avenue and -the prices paid for other properties than those in suit is incompetent and inadmissible. ■
.Appealsby defendants from judgments after trial of the
issues at, the Equity Term.
Davies, Short & Townsend (Julien T. Davies and Brainard Tolles, of counsel), for appellants.
B. L. Winters (Jesse Stearns, of counsel), for respondent.

Opinion:
Freedman, J.
These two actions, which ' were tried together, were brought to restrain the maintenance and operation of defendants' elevated railway in front of several of plaintiff's, premises on Third avenue, in the city of New York) and fbr past damages. In each. of the actions the plaintiff recovered the. appropriate', judgment -usually granted in this' class of cases. Upon the trial of the issues the plaintiff was permitted to prove, as part of her case in the first instance, the rents of other buildings on Third avenue, and the prices " paid for other properties on Third avenue, than those in suit. The defendants seasonably objected to this evidence, and their objection having been overruled, duly excepted.
In Jamieson v. Kings Co. El. R. R. Co., 147 N. Y. 322, it was held that such evidence is incompetent and inadmissible, as tending to raise collateral issues. The counsel for the plaintiff, in his brief, "concedes that, according to the decision of that case, the exception taken by the defendants upon the said p.oint was well taken, but he claims that the evidence thus erroneously admitted did, after all, no harm. A careful examination of the whole case has failed to satisfy me that the defendants were not prejudiced, because the effect of the incompetent evidence was to lend color "to the argument that some of plaintiff's property was probably injured more seriously than was discernible from the actual rentals produced. Nor can I find that the defendants so conducted themselves as to stand precluded from claiming the benefit of the exception. . That they subsequently sought to overcome the effect of the incompetent evidence by giving similar evidence on their part does not constitute a waiver of their exception. They were compelled to do it.
.For the error aforesaid the judgments should be reversed and new trials ordered, with costs to the appellants "to abide the' event.
McAdam, J., concurs.
Judgments reversed and new trials ordered, with costs to appellants to abide event.