Title: Dallas Railway & Terminal Co. v. Jarvis
Citation: 270 S.W.2d 205
Docket Number: A-4597
State: Texas
Issuer: Texas Supreme Court
Date: July 7, 1954

270 S.W.2d 205 (1954) DALLAS RAILWAY &amp; TERMINAL CO. v. JARVIS. No. A-4597. Supreme Court of Texas. July 7, 1954. Burford, Ryburn, Hincks &amp; Ford and Howard Jensen and Joseph M. Stuhl, Dallas, for petitioner. Chaney, Davenport &amp; Harless, Dallas, for respondent. CALVERT, Justice. Respondent, Lewis A. Jarvis, is the husband of Hannah Jarvis, and by his suit against Dallas Railway &amp; Terminal Company, petitioner, sought damages for injuries to his wife. The trial judge overruled a motion by the defendant to disregard answers of the jury, favorable to the plaintiff, to certain special issues and render judgment for defendant, and rendered judgment on the verdict for the plaintiff. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. Plaintiff's wife was injured when she fell while in the process of alighting from defendant's bus. In her petition she alleged the manner of her injury as follows: "that when the bus stopped she pushed open the double doors and noticed that the bus had stopped in such a position that the safety buttons, placed in the street for a zone for boarding and leaving such bus, were directly beneath the door and had she stepped down immediately she would have stepped on said buttons, and at such instance (sic) the bus started up in forward motion and she was thrown out of the door and on the pavement with such force and violence that her foot struck said buttons which resulted in serious personal injuries to her left ankle as will be set out herein below." She charged the defendant with the following negligent acts and omissions, each of which was alleged to be a proximate cause of her injury: "1. In starting the bus before Hannah Jarvis was clear of the said bus. 2. In failing to keep a proper lookout for the safety of Hannah Jarvis. 3. In bringing said bus to a stop in such a position whereby the safety zone buttons were directly beneath the door where Hannah Jarvis would leave the bus." The jury found the defendant failed to keep a proper lookout for the safety of Hannah Jarvis which was a proximate cause of the accident and that the defendant failed to use a high degree of care in stopping the bus in such a position that the safety buttons were directly beneath the door where Hannah Jarvis would leave the bus *206 which was a proximate cause of the accident. It was these findings that the defendant sought to have disregarded on the ground that they had no support in the evidence. If they should be disregarded the judgment for plaintiff cannot stand because the jury found in response to the only other negligence issue submitted that the driver of the bus did not start it before Hannah Jarvis was clear of it. The questions raised by this motion and the points of error predicated thereon require an examination of the evidence. Hannah Jarvis was the only witness who testified to the manner in which the accident occurred. Her testimony with respect thereto although not entirely clear, is at least brief and is here reproduced in full: On direct examination. On cross-examination. By deposition. The only theory of recovery supported by the foregoing testimony is that as plaintiff's wife started to leave the bus the driver negligently moved it causing her to fall, and that theory was rejected by the jury. There is no evidence of probative force that the fall was proximately caused by the stopping of the bus in such a position that the safety zone buttons were directly beneath the door and there is no evidence of probative force that plaintiff's wife's fall was caused by her stepping on one of such buttons. Jury verdicts cannot be made the basis of a judgment when they rest on nothing more than mere surmise or suspicion. Joske v. Irvine, 91 Tex. 574, 44 S.W. 1059, 1063; Jefferson Standard Life Ins. Co. v. Young, Tex.Civ.App., 135 S.W.2d 1040, 1044, writ refused. Neither will the finding of failure to keep a proper lookout for the safety of plaintiff's wife support the judgment. That finding can be related only to the conduct of the bus driver in stopping the bus with the door directly over the safety zone buttons which, as we have held under the evidence, had nothing to do with the fall, or in moving the bus while plaintiff's wife was trying to alight therefrom which the jury has found did not occur, or in not watching plaintiff's wife while she was leaving the bus which could not have resulted in preventing her fall. The judgments of the trial court and Court of Civil Appeals are reversed and judgment is here rendered that plaintiff take nothing.