Court Opinion

ID: 9828172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:10:49.279298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:45.107212
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant states that Ranney was present •and superintended the loading of the wagon and directed Chipman to load' the wagon so the women and children could ride on it. The evidence quoted by appellant in his argument refutes the statement. Ranney came by when the wagon was being loaded and asked why the wagon had not gone, and, upon being told that it was on account of the Mexicans being so slow, said he would send a man “to make them hurry up.” lie went off and sent the man, and there is no testimony to the effect he ever directed the wagon to be loaded so the women and children could ride on it, and appellant fails to point out any testimony sustaining his assertion to that effect. There is not one word of testimony tending to show that the man sent by Ranney to hurry the Mexicans had any authority from Ranney or any one else to tell the women to get on the wagon. No case has been cited, nor can, we think, be cited, sustaining the proposition that, because the man was sent down to assist in loading the wagon, he thereby became a vice principal and could bind the corporation as to orders which subverted one of its positive rules, which was that women and children should not be permitted to ride on the wagons.
[2] The question of whether Walter Mitchell was a vice principal was one of law under the undisputed facts. Elhvood, the only vice principal who spoke to the Mexicans, ordered them to get out of the wagon and to stay out of it. His statement was not contradicted, and the jury found that he gave the order to the woman, the wife of appellant. That was the last order given to the Mexicans and had the effect of countermanding any orders theretofore given. And yet in spite of that order they got back on the wagon and the woman fell off and was killed. The shipping clerk, in the case of Hugo, Schmeltzer & Co. v. Paiz, 128 S. W. 912, had charge of the men working under him, and the elevator was released by his order. He was held to be a vice principal by this court. The facts of this case do not render that case applicable.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.