Case Name: SMITH v. EL PASO & N. E. R. CO. et al.
Court: Texas Courts of Civil Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1933-11-02
Citations: 67 S.W.2d 362
Docket Number: No. 2871
Parties: SMITH v. EL PASO & N. E. R. CO. et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 67
Pages: 362–369

Head Matter:
SMITH v. EL PASO & N. E. R. CO. et al.
No. 2871.
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. El Paso.
Nov. 2, 1933.
On Motion for Rehearing, Dec. 21, 1933.
On Second Motion for Rehearing, Jan. 11, 1934.
Robert L. Holliday and Henry T. Moore, both of El Paso, for appellant.
J. W. Morrow and Del W. Harrington, both of El Paso, for appellees.

Opinion:
WALTHALL, Justice.
This case presents an action brought to recover damages growing out of a collision between an automobile and an engine being operated on one of the streets in the city of. El Paso. The suit is brought by Frank C. ' Smith against the El Paso & Northeastern Railroad Company, W. W. Wonner, and the Southern Pacific Company, to recover damages for himself and as next friend for the use and benefit of Robert Stevens and Georgia Stevens, minor children of his deceased wife, Mrs. Mousie Smith, who was killed in the collision between the automobile she was driving and the locomotive engine with. a tender attached which constituted the entire train operated by W. W. Wonner, as engineer for the Southern Pacific Company.
The place of the collision was where the railroad tracks intersect Piedras street in the eastern part of the city, and while the engine was being backed across said street.
In considering the questions presented here, we think it necessary to state only a few of the issues submitted to the jury and the jury's findings thereon.
The jury found that Mrs. Mousie Smith, in approaching the . railroad crossing on the occasion in question, was negligent in several instances proximately causing or contributing to cause the collision in which she was killed, in failure to keep a lookout, and in approaching said railroad crossing.
The jury found that appellees were negligent in several acts assigned, and which negligent acts proximately caused the collision which resulted in the death of Mrs. Smith. Among the appellee's negligent acts the jury found, on the issue of discovered peril, that the employees of the Southern Pacific Company, "before the collision, discovered and realized' that Mrs. Smith was probably going to attempt to cross in front of the tender of the engine and would probably be injured unless steps were taken'* by them to avoid or minimize such injury, in time, by the use of ordinary care, with the means available consistent with their own safety, to have avoided the death of Mrs. Smith"; that defendants' (Southern Pacific Company) employees "were negligent in the use of the means then available to them to have avoided, or minimized such injury to Mrs. Smith"; and that such negligence was "a proximate cause of the death of Mrs. Smith." The jury made other findings, such as the damages sustained by appellants. Appellants moved for judgment on the ground that the jury had found for them on the issue of discovered peril. The court overruled the appellant's motion, to which they duly excepted. On motion of appellees duly made, judgment was entered in their favor and against appellants non obstante veredicto, to which appellants excepted and gave notice of appeal.
The court overruled appellants' motion for a new trial, and appellants prosecute this appeal.
Opinion.
Appellants duly plead discovered peril as one of the acts of negligence on the part of appellees Which caused the collision with the automobile driven by Mrs. Smith and resulting in her death. Evidence was submitted on the issue of discovered peril; the issue was submitted to the jury; the jury found the issue in favor of appellant and of discovered peril as found was a proximate' cause of the collision resulting in the injuries and death therefrom of Mrs. Smith. The trial court rendered judgment for ap-pellees, and appellants submit that, where the issue of discovered peril is pleaded as negligence on the part of the operatives of the engine proximately causing the injuries complained of and evidence is offered which justifies the submission of the issue and the finding of the jury on the issue, it is immaterial that the jury also finds the deceased, Mrs. Smith, guilty of contributory negligence proximately contributing to cause the collision, and judgment should be for appellant.
Appellees submit the counter proposition to the effect that the court properly sustained appellees' motion for judgment non obstante veredicto.
The evidence on the issue of discovered peril is lengthy. Both sides quote from1the evidence in the briefs. We have reviewed the evidence with much care, and' have concluded that the evidence is sufficient to. justify the submission of the issue ánd' to sustain the jury's finding thereon.
Briefly stated, the evidence on the issue of discovered peril is sufficient from which the jury could find: The appellees' train at the time and place of the collision consisted of an engine and tender. The time was about 8:30 in the morning. The engine and tender, going east, had reached Piedras street, a busy street at that time of the day; at that place the engine and tender were going slightly up grade and at a speed of from eight to ten miles an hour.. Mrs. Smith's automobile was then approaching the street crossing from the north at a speed of some twenty-five miles an hour. Brakeman Sears was standing on the north side of the fropt end of the tender step with his right hand on the ladder. He first saw Mrs. Smith's car approaching the crossing at a distance of 75 to 100 feet from the street crossing. He testified that about the west curb of the street he gave a signal to engineer Wonner to back up faster, which !he did, and the speed increased. Brakeman Sears was at his place to give signals, but gave no signal at any time to stop the engine. A car was standing in the street on the north side of the track; Sears saw the Smith car slow, up behind the standing car and then drive around it when the rail of the tender struck the ear and pushed it about 20 feet after the impact before Mrs. Smith fell out. At. the time witness saw the Smith car coming from behind the standing car, he felt the air applied on the tank (tender).
Witness Wonner testified: Was engineer on the engine at the time of the collision when Mrs. Smith was killed at the Piedras street crossing. Before reaching Piedras, street crossing, witness closed the throttle to what witness called a "drifting throttle," which gives the engine just enough steam to keep the compression out of the cylinders,, and the engine slowed to seven or eight miles an hour; during that time the steam was shut off. Witness saw a car come (on the north side) and stop; about the time the-rear of the tank reached the (west) edge of Piedras street, Sears, the brakeman on the tank, gave a signal to come on; witness opened the throttle, gave the engine steam and about the time the rear of the tank got to the street car track (in Piedras street), the brakeman gave a violent stop signal (the-brakeman testified he gave no signal), and. about the same time witness noticed the-(Smith) ear coming on the east side of Pied-ras street, apparently trying to pass behind ; witness immediately closed the throttle; the engine had sanders, but witness did not apply sand; did not put the engine ip reverse; witness closed the throttle and applied the emergency brake; the engine was "wide open" when it went, over Piedras street, that is, giving it all the steam it will take. (Witness states the location on the engine of the throttle and the emergency: brake and witness' position with reference, to them.) Witness cut off the throttle when he had the signal from the brakeman and saw the Smith car. The engine, going as-it was, the best you could do, you could stop it about 150 or 200 feet, and going at four, six, or eight miles the distance would .decrease proportionately. Witness located the angle cock on the front of the engine and on the tank, near where the brakeman Sears was on the'sill. They are opened and closed by hand; that would apply the emergency brakes immediately the same as the lever in the engine cab could. Sears was on the sill step or the rear tank step, was facing the way the engine was going. To protect himself from injury by the impact with the automobile, he climlbed up the step above the sill. When witness first saw the Smith car, it was 3 or 4 feet east of the street car track (in the middle of the street) and lS or 20 feet north of the railroad track. Did not see the Smith car hack of the standing car; saw it "after it was passing the (standing) car."
John W. Woodley, a locomotive engineer and fireman, testified: "Assuming that an S. P. engine of 3700 class is hacking up a 1% grade and the brakes were in good condition and rails were in condition • I would say an engine could he stopped going at from 8 to 10 miles an hour, in 45 feet." Witness had often stopped an engine in 28 feet when going ten miles an hour.
Mrs. Smith was taken out from under the engine about 100 feet from the east side of Piedras street.
Assuming that the issue of discovered peril was properly submitted and sufficiently sustained by the evidence, the question is. then presented: What judgment should the court have rendered on the jury's verdict? Two grounds for judgment in appellees' favor are suggested, in the motion, negligence on the part of Mrs. Mousie Smith proximately contributing to cause the collision, and that the issue of discovered peril has no support in the evidence.
The judgment, by its verbiage, sustains both grounds of the motion.
That the jury's finding of negligence on the part of Mrs. Smith has support in the evidence is no't questioned by appellant. Brakeman Sears testified that he saw the Smith car some 50 or 75 feet from the parked car (Blarston car) coming in the direction of the railroad crossing. That would put the Smith car some 75 to 100 feet from the railroad crossing when first discovered by the brakeman Sears. There is no evidence in the record that the Smith car stopped at any time before the impact. Sears denied that he gave a stop signal to the engineer, and gave as a. reason for not doing so that the engineer could see the advancing Smith ear. Then we have a situation as the jury might view it, the Smith car discovered at a distance of from 75 to 100 feet, and at that time going at a speed toward the railroad crossing of about thirty miles, and, after passing the parked Marston car, the speed reduced to fif-, teen or sixteen miles per hour when the impact occurred. Now to discover approaching cars was Sears' duty. No evidence that he made any use of the angle cock to stop or reduce the speed of the engine, though apparently within his reach. He gave no signal to the engineer. As said in Hines v. Arrant (Tex. Civ. App.) 225 S. W. 767, 770, Sears could not in the very nature of things actually know what was in the mind of the driver of the Smith car when driving towards the railroad crossing. It was Sears' duty, if he discovered the Smith car approaching the crossing and could reasonably infer that the driver would likely undertake to cross the track, to use the facilities at hand to prevent a collision, either by stopping or by lessening the speed of his train. As said in the ease referred to Sears "had no right to wait until he was absolutely certain that the traveler was going into a place of danger before taking the proper steps to avoid injuring him." It seems to us that the jury might have thought that Sears should have given the engineer "the violent stop" signal testified to by Wonner at a time when the engineer could have stopped or slowed the engine down and avoided the collision. That was what he was on the tender for. We cannot say, in the face of the uncontroverted evidence, that the jury might not have taken that view.
Again, the jury could have found under the evidence that the engine could have been stop- ' ped at a shorter distance than it was and thus have avoided the death of Mrs. Smith. From the evidence, without quoting it, the automobile was pushed or dragged along after the impact for some 100 feet, and that Mrs. Smith was not run over and killed until she fell out of the automobile at a distance of about 100 feet from the point of the impact.
As we view the evidence, we cannot say, as a matter of law, that the evidence was not sufficient to take the case to the jury.
We think we need not discuss the question as to what the judgment of the trial court should have been, if the evidence was ' sufficient to sustain the jury's finding on the issue of discovered peril. We concur in ap-' pellant's statement of the law that, where the evidence is sufficient to sustain, the issue of discovered peril and the jury so finds, it is immaterial that the jury also finds that the-deceased was guilty of contributory negli-' gence, since contributory negligence is no de-' fense to the action where the situation of peril was discovered by appellees in time to avoid the injury and sufficient' effort was not made to avert it. Wilson v. Southern Traction Company, 111 Tex. 361, 234 S. W. 663, and the several cases there referred to by' Judge Greenwood in discussing that case.
In view of another trial we think it might be said that, in our opinion, under the facts of the case, appellees should be allbwed to exercise only six peremptory challenges. Article 2148, R. C. S.; Hargrave v. Vaughn, 82 Tex. 347, 18 S. W. 695; International-G. N. R. R. Co. v. Smith (Tex. Civ. App.) 269 S. W. 886.
We have concluded that the case should be reversed and remanded, and it is so ordered.