Court Opinion

ID: 9834012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:13:13.146928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:10.690709
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In deference to the very earnest motion for a rehearing we have again considered the evidence in this case, but, after having ■done so, we conclude that there is no material error in our original conclusions. It cannot be said that the plaintiff wholly failed to exercise care for her own safety. It is evident that it took but a few moments to walk the one block intervening between the plaintiff’s starting point and the crossing where struck, and, while at starting the ■switch crew may have been in the north part of the yards, as appellant urges, nothing in the evidence shows that the plaintiff’s attention was called to the location of the engine and crew and that they had started or were about to start in her direction. This being true, and the engine having approached silently and without light or warning of any kind, and plaintiff having “looked” forward at least, and having “listened,” as she testified, we can hardly say that the issue of ■contributory negligence was not for the jury. The case is not clearly one where the plaintiff is affirmatively shown to have been guilty of an entire want of care for her own safety, as appears in some of the cases cited by appellant. See Railway Co. v. Kendall, 78 S. W. 1081.
But, if it be assumed that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, there yet remains the finding, as we must impute to the verdict, that the operatives were guilty •of a want of due care after discovery of plaintiff’s peril. The fireman testified that he did not have time to warn the engineer to stop after plaintiff got on the track. This ■may have been true, but he did not testify that he could not have sounded the bell, nor did the switchman testify at all, though the testimony of the engineer authorizes the inference that he was on the very front of the engine. Moreover, the fireman testified that he kept looking at the plaintiff all the time. Why so? He must have thought, in view of the direction of the path upon which plaintiff was traveling and the proximate location of the public crossing, that the plaintiff might undertake to cross the track. At any rate, he kept looking at her, and when she turned to the right and kept going directly toward the crossing without looking back the fireman must have then, at least, anticipated the plaintiff’s danger. At the moment of so turning she was 15 or 20 feet from the railway track, as the jury was authorized to conclude; for, contrary to appellant’s contention, the plaintiff testified that:
The path upon which she was traveling “was 10, 15, or 20 feet from the track on the left-hand side. * * * When I started to cross the track, I was in the path parallel to the railroad track. * * * I turned to the fight and started towards the track. This path leads closer to the track when you get to the crossing. It is about 10 feet.”
We still think that the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff authorized the conclusion of the jury that the plaintiff’s injury could probably have been avoided by an exercise of due care after her peril was discovered.
Nor, as we conceive, are we in conflict with the case of M., K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Eyer, 96 Tex. 72, 70 S. W. 529. The charge condemned in that ease authorized a recovery without a finding that the negligence alleged was the proximate cause of the injuries shown. But no such objection was urged to the fourth paragraph of the court’s charge in this case, nor is the charge subject to such objection. The complaint here was one of omission merely.
We conclude that the motion for rehearing must be overruled.