Williams v. Collins

Decided May 18, 1914

Missouri Court of Appeals · decided 1914-05-18

1. RAPE: Damages: Evidence. In a civil action, although founded on the alleged commission of a heinous crime, the plaintiff is not required to prove the basic charge beyond a reasonable doubt, but is required to support the charge by substantial evidence, which if accepted by the triers of fact, would justify the conclusion, as a reasonable inference, that the crime has been committed as alleged. 2. EVIDENCE: Uncorroborated: Rape. While our courts sanction the rule that the charge of rape, because of the nature of the crime, may be sustained by the testimony of the woman alone, they analyze her testimony with care, and, if it be .found inconsistent with physical law or human nature, do not hesitate to reject it as unworthy of belief. 2. -: -: -: Disclosing of Assault. The fact that a woman does not disclose the assault within a reasonable time is a circumstance bearing upon the plaintiff’s credibility, and the general merits of her case, that was proper for the jury to consider.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1914-05-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently May 1984

6 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1CONCURRING OPINION.

ELLISON, P. J.

¶2I agree to an affirmance of the judgment notwithstanding a large part of plaintiff’s case is not worthy of belief. But some of it is not of such character that an appellate court could say it is false, as a matter of law. To illustrate: the law recognizes the binding effect of a verdict, though the jury finding it may believe a large part of the story of witnesses is wilfully false. It is common to instruct a jury to the effect that if they find perjury has been committed in material parts of the testimony of witnesses, they are at liberty to reject the whole of it, but are not compelled to do so. So if it be conceded that plaintiff’s story that there was a sexual connection without her consent, may reasonably be believed by a jury, we may reject most of what remains as imaginative garnishing, or horrifying adornment, and yet leave her with enough to make out a case in an appellate tribunal.