Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/602

This page needs to be proofread.
578
48 NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS

against him for $243.44 and interest. Held, that the verdict is clearly right and the judgment is affirmed.

Opinion filed Nov. 18, 1921. Rehearing denied Dec. 10, 1921.

Appeal from the District Court of Cass County; Cole, J.

Affirmed.

Melvin A. Hildreth, Defendant and Attorney in pro. per., and S. L. Nuchols, for appellant.

“Testimony collateral to the issues which would merely tend to prejudice the jury should be rejected.” Jones Commentaries on Evidence, Vol. 1, citing more than a hundred cases.

It must be first shown that there was substantial similarity of conditions, citing the following authorities. Metropolitan W. S. R. R. Co. v. Dickinson, 47 N, E. 706; Ramsey v. Rushville & M. Gravel Road Co. 81 Ind. 394; Louisville Water Co. v. Weis, (Ky.) 76 S. W. 356; Hughes v. General Electric L. & P. Co. (Ky.) 54 S. W. 723; 25 Am. St. Rep. 782; 57 Am. St. Rep. 810; 21 Am. St. Rep. 262; 110 Mass. 134; 50 S. W. &4; Western Ins. Co. v. Tobin, 32 Ohio, St. 77; Barrett v. Hammond, 87 Wis. 654; 58 N. W. 1053.

In Louisville Water Co. v. Weis, 76 S. W. 356 it was held: “That evidence to show that other cellars were f'ooded by a leaking meter was properly excluded.”

In Clark v. Water Power Co., 52 Me. 75 it was held: “In an action for diverting a stream, injuries to another mill-owner were rejected on the facts, because “There were no elements of comparison offered which could afford any safe or reliable data for the judgment of a jury. Wig- more on Evidence, Vol. 1, p. 526 to 540.

In Sugar C. C. M. Co. v. Peterson, 177 Il. 324, it was held: That evidence should be rejected of the felling of mine-roof in another place. Such evidence being collateral.

In the case of Fitzsimons & Connell Co. v. Braun, 65 N. E. 249, it was held, in a suit to recover damages for an injury to a building by dynamite blasts near by; the fact that adjacent buildings were or were not injured by the same blasting, was excluded, as not within the issue.

Taylor Crum, for respondent.

Robinson J. The complaint avers that in November, 1914, in the city of Fargo, the plaintiff performed services for the defendant, at his