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Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway Co. v. Neff

Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railway Company v. Neff

Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Ry. Co. v. Neff, 56 N.E. 927 (Ind. Ct. App. 1900)
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Court
Indiana Court of Appeals · State Appellate Courts
Decided
April 5, 1900
Docket
No. 3,089
Judges
Henley
Citations
56 N.E. 92725 Ind. App. 1071900 Ind. App. LEXIS 58
Disposition
Affirmed.
Headnotes
Evidence.—Personal Injuries.—Mortality Tables.—A judgment impersonal injuries will not be reversed because of the admission of the testimony of a witness as to the expectancy of life at the age of plaintiff based upon the mortality table of a certain life insurance company, where the expectancy given by the witness was less than that given by standard mortality tables of which the Appellate Court takes judicial notice.
Summary
Erom the Montgomery Circuit Court.

Syllabus and headnotes are prepared by the reporter or publisher, not the court, and are not part of the opinion.

Opinion of the Court — Henley

Text extracted by OCR from a scanned original; check the original for exact wording.

Henley, J.

—This was an action commenced by appellee against appellant to recover damages for an injury received by appellee through appellant’s negligence. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee. It is assigned as error that the lower court erred in overruling appellant’s motion for a new trial.

If appellee was free from fault, there would seem to be no question of appellant’s liability. Counsel for appellant in their brief say: “The appellee, Neff, was a regular passenger on one of appellant’s trains, and was rightfully on the car and in his proper place when injured through appellant’s negligence.”

The only question discussed under the assignment of error relates to the admission of the testimony of the witness, William W. Morgan. The witness was asked by appellee to testify as to appellee’s expectancy of life. We think the witness was shown to be competent to testify upon the subject. He was then asked if he had in his possession life tables of expectancy, and replied that he had the tables of the Northwestern Mutual Life of Milwaukee. Witness was then asked what was the expectancy of life of a *108 man sixty years of age as shown by the tables referred to, and answered that it was thirteen and seventeen one-hundredths years. It would have been the proper practice, after witness had shown his competency to testify, to have asked him to state the expectancy of life of a man sixty years of age. In answering, witness could have referred to the tables to refresh his memory.

The court will take judicial knowledge of the United States mortality tables and of other standard tables of the same character. We must then know that appellant was not harmed by the evidence of the witness Morgan. He placed ' appellee’s expectancy at a less number of years than it is placed by the United States mortality tables, the Carlisle tables or North Hampton tables.

The question as to the admissibility of evidence of the expectancy of life is exhaustively treated in the case of Shover v. Myrick, 4 Ind. App. 7 . Also see Clark County, etc., Co. v. Wright, 16 Ind. App. 630 .

We find no error for which the judgment should be reversed. Judgment affirmed.

How later courts describe this case

No later court has written an explanatory parenthetical about this case yet.

1906: 11932: 119062026peak 1906 · 1

Relies on it most ⓘ

  1. Southern Pac. Co. v. Cavin144 F. 348 (9th Cir. 1906)
  2. Doap Leun Hong Co. v. United States19 C.C.P.A. 313 (C.C.P.A. 1932) · Concurrence

Most recent

  1. Doap Leun Hong Co. v. United States19 C.C.P.A. 313 (C.C.P.A. 1932) · Concurrence
  2. Southern Pac. Co. v. Cavin144 F. 348 (9th Cir. 1906)

Citing references are not a citator: they show that a later opinion cites this case, not whether it followed, distinguished, or overruled it. Check negative history before relying on this case.

Authorities cited 2

DepthCaseCited by
Shover v. Myrick, 30 N.E. 207 (Ind. Ct. App. 1892) 28
Clark Cnty. Cement Co. v. Wright, 45 N.E. 817 (Ind. Ct. App. 1897) 10

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