Court Opinion

ID: 9830122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:53:47.903399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:04.270139
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[6] The appellant in its motion assumes apparently that we based our holding that contributory negligence as to the way was a question for the jury on the ground that the appellee testified that he could have gone between the tracks but for the mud and water. We did not intend so to hold, but held under all the facts of this case it was a question for the jury. It is not the law that a licensee using the track as a passway because it is accompanied with some danger by that fact alone, and as a matter of law, is guilty of contributory negligence. The Byrd Case, 102 Tex. 263, 115 S. W. 1163, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 429, 20 Ann. Cas. 137, and Mathews Case, 100 Tex. 63, 93 S. W. 1068, cited by appellant, do not so hold, as we read them. The Thomas Case, 147 S. W. 296, and Broomhead Case, 140 S. W. 820, discuss the above Supreme Court cases, and show wherein they differ from cases with facts similar, to the instant case, and in the two latter cases writs of error were denied by the Supreme Court. In the Longino Case, 54 Tex. Civ. App. 87, 118, S. W. 198, the Supreme Court in passing upon the writ affirmed that case 103 Tex. 250, 126 S. W. 8. It was held by the Supreme Court that whether one struck by a train at a place so much traveled" by pedestrians that he was not a trespasser exercised ordinary care in looking back for the train was, under the evidence of that ease, a question for the jury. The opinion by the Supreme Court in the case was written by the same judge who wrote the opinion- in the Byrd Case, supra. The facts show in this case that before the ap-pellee stepped on the track where he was injured he ascertained the location of the switch engine which struck him to be a considerable distance north of him and going at that time in an opposite direction; and, while he traveled a distance on the track before he was struck, it was but a very short distance. Though there may have been some danger in stepping on the track, he had the right to assume that those operating the engine would keep a proper lookout for persons on the track .where it was usual and customary for them to be, and that they would give the proper warning. In all cases it necessarily must be the safe way to keep off the track, and it is hard to conceive but that the destination could be reached that way without going along the track, but we do not understand that it necessarily follows because there is a safe way a licensee is guilty as a matter of law of contributory negligence. The circumstances may be such that it is not negligence to so use the track. In our opinion, this case raises an issue of fact for the jury. As we understand, in a ease where the" facts az-e somewhat like this, the Supreme Court, in Railway Co. v. Wall, 102 Tex. 362, 116 S. W. 1140, held it was a question for the jury whether a person of ordinary prudence Would have walked upon the track under the then surrounding circumstances.
Believing that the facts and circumstances of this case raise the question of contributory negligence as a fact and not as a matter of law, we held the court propei-ly submitted that question to the jury. We believe the motion for rehearing should be overruled.