Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/339

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WEBER v. INTERSTATE BUSINESS MEN’S ACC. ASSO’N
315

wheel upon the neck and pressing the head and jawbone into the cinders and track? A. That wouldn’t be the easiest way of explaining it.

“Q. How would you explain that? A. I should fancy that he was struck first by some projecting iron or thing.

“Q. You mean to say that from the position of that body that he might have been struck by something besides the car wheel? A. Yes, sir.

“Q. There is nothing that I can think of on a car that would hit him there, and at the same time cut off his head and break the jaw. Do you think that that blow to the jaw might have taken place and broken the jaw before the head was cut off? A. It might have been.

“Q. Was that a serious event, that breaking of the jaw? A. If the person were alive; yes.

“Q. From the position of the body you would not think that that injury to the jaw resulted from any other cause than the passing of the wheel over the neck, would you? A. The break of the jaw was not caused by the severing of the neck, something hit him.”

Dr. Campbell was a disinterested witness. His evidence, above set forth, is of a substantial character, and sufficient to show that in some unaccountable and unknown manner the insured was struck by some- thing besides the car wheel; and the jury, from the evidence above set forth, could draw the conclusion that, from being struck on the jaw with such force as to break it, he was thereby thrown on the rail and further injured, as the evidence shows. In other words, the testimony of Dr. Campbell in this regard is substantial in character and sufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury.

It will also be noticed that nowhere does the defendant claim that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. But, if the defendant had assigned as a cause for reversal of the judgment the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the general rule is well settled on an appeal from a judgment entered on a verdict that, if there is any substantial evidence to sustain the verdict, the judgment should be affirmed. That rule is applicable here, and, applied, the evidence of Dr. Campbell is sufficient to sustain the verdict.

There is error assigned by reason of the court having given a certain instruction, and particular stress is placed on the following part of it:

“If you find that he was impelled to an act of self-destruction by an insane impulse which the reason that was left in him did not enable him to resist, or if his reasoning powers were so far overcome by his mental con-