Court Opinion

ID: 9654161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:07:59.722562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:06.309902
License: Public Domain

HOGG, Judge
(dissenting).
I think the majority opinion in this case constitutes an unwarranted encroachment upon the well-established province of the jury, and I respectfully dissent.
The plaintiff undertook to prove negligence on the part of the defendant by showing that there was a failure to give the statutory warnings required at railroad crossings, namely: blowing the whistle or ringing the bell. Three witnesses were produced. The first was the plaintiff, a sister of the two deceased men and a beneficiary of any amount that would be recovered. She stated that she saw the train when it was more than 800 feet from the crossing; that she continued to view its approach to the crossing and that neither the bell nor the whistle was sounded at any time. It is admitted that she was in a position where she could have heard these signals. The other two witnesses, disinterested and not parties, testified that they observed the train as it approached the crossing and they did not hear any signals given.
At this point, there could be no doubt but that plaintiff had presented sufficient evidence of probative value to withstand a motion for a peremptory. No one would go so far as to say that reasonable men, properly weighing this evidence, could only reach the conclusion that the statutory signals had been given.
The defendant then introduced about a dozen witnesses, included in this number being the engineer, fireman, and the father of the plaintiff and the two deceased men, all of whom stated positively that the whistle was sounded and the bell was rung. Through some process that I am unable to comprehend, the majority opinion finds that the defendant’s evidence has the effect of decreasing, overcoming, or destroying the probative value of the plaintiff’s evidence to the extent of sustaining the lower court in directing a verdict for the defendant.
The decision that the defendant was entitled to a directed verdict can be sustained only if, from a consideration of all the evidence, reasonable men could only conclude that the statutory signals were given. My own consideration of the evidence convinces me that this conclusion would not be warranted.
There is no difference in the quality of the proof presented by each party; essentially, it is what each witness perceived with respect to the sounding of the whistle and the ringing of the bell. There is no proof that the witnesses for the plaintiff were in a less advantageous position to hear these signals, nor are there any “physical facts” in this case. In my opinion, what one, ten, or twenty witnesses say they heard cannot destroy the positive testimony of one witness that neither the whistle nor bell was sounded; it only contradicts, and it does not contradict any more directly when vouched for by a number of witnesses, unless we are to lay down the arbitrary rule that contradictions are to be resolved by counting witnesses. Being only a contradiction, it becomes necessary to decide which witnesses will be believed, but whether contradicted by one, ten, or twenty, the determination of which contradictory evidence is to be accepted should be left to the jury. Like*12wise, the fact that the plaintiff is an interested party does not render her testimony of no probative value but goes to her credibility, a matter that has always been regarded as being within the province of the jury. I believe that where the facts are in dispute, and the evidence in relation to them is that from which fair-minded men may draw different conclusions, a jury question is presented.
I am at a loss to understand how I could subscribe to the majority opinion without usurping the jury’s function of determining which of the contradictory evidence I would believe from the reading of a cold and lifeless record. I have enough difficulty with the quantity and quality of the purely legal questions presented.
The holding in the case of Fryrear v. Kentucky & I. Terminal R. Co., relied upon in the majority opinion, was a complete departure from what had been the settled law in this state for a century. In deciding if there was sufficient evidence in favor of the plaintiff to authorize submitting the case to the jury, the court said that because the plaintiff was an interested party, her testimony, together with that of two other witnesses, did not authorize the submission of the case to the jury. Whether or not a person is an interested witness is taken into account in determining the credibility of the witness. As far as can be determined, never before had the question of the credibility of a witness been assumed by a judge instead of a jury to decide a jury case. To follow that case as authority is compounding error. It should immediately be overruled.
Believing that a jury question was presented, and believing that a verdict for appellant under the evidence would not have been flagrantly or palpably against the evidence, I disagree with the majority opinion. The majority opinion departs from the well-established law of this state that verdicts of juries will not be set aside upon the ground that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdicts, unless such verdicts are flagrantly or palpably against the evidence. While I do not approve of such a departure, nevertheless I would say that the evidence in this case would be sufficient to sustain a verdict for appellant, notwithstanding such departure.
STEWART, J., joins me in this dissent.