Court Opinion

ID: 9681286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:47:23.62112+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:33.056259
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing
The appeal is before us on motions for rehearing by both plaintiffs and defendants.
Defendants’ motion has been considered and the same is overruled.
Plaintiffs’ motion is also overruled. We add these comments: Plaintiffs have cited the decisions in Smith v. Henger, 148 Tex. 456, 226 S.W.2d 425, 20 A.L.R.2d 853, W. P. Carmichael Co. v. Miller, Tex.Civ.App., 178 S.W. 976 and Cornett v. Hardy, Tex.Civ.App., 241 S.W.2d 186. None of these decisions is in point on the facts as respects the defendant Howe’s liability. Henger was not the kind of servant that Howe was. Howe was neither the owner nor the occupant of land; he was an intermediate servant of the occupant. Henger’s case seems to be like Fox v. Dallas Hotel Company, 111 Tex. 461, 240 S.W. 517. In Miller’s case the foreman sent the workman into the dangerous situation; and in Hardy’s case the servant knew of the dangerous condition of the wheel when he requested the plaintiff to put air into the tire. In Lane v. Fair Stores, Inc., Tex., 243 S.W.2d 683 the servant was not a party to the suit.
We agree with plaintiffs that if they could show that the candy on which Mrs. Selph stepped had come from the top of the candy case, then the defendant Howe might be liable for negligence incidental to the way and manner in which candy was displayed on the top of the case. How*903ever, the proof rules out liability on the part of Howe under plaintiffs’ allegations Nos. 7 and 8 in paragraph 6 of the amended petition, to which the trial court sustained defendants’ exceptions 9(L) and 9(M). The proof shows that Howe did not stack or place the candy and that the people who did this were not his servants or his agents. Allegation No. 10 in paragraph 6 of the amended petition, to which the trial court sustained exception 9(0) might be of some significance, hut the particular allegation was incomplete in the respect pointed out in exception 9(0), and this exception was good. This matter of stacking candy had been set out as negligence in a preceding paragraph of the petition, namely, paragraph 4 of Article 4 of' the amended petition; but exceptions 5(a) and 5(b) were sustained to this paragraph, and the trial court was authorized to test the sufficiency of allegation 6(10) by the terms of that allegation alone. We note that error has not been assigned to the trial court’s action in sustaining exceptions 5 (a) and 5 (b).