Court Opinion

ID: 9834256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:26:57.362925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:13.292381
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
.The decision of the Commission of Appeals in Barron v. H. E. & W. T. Ry. Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 249 S. W. 825, has been published since our decision in the present suit on original hearing. Appellee cites that case, and urgently insists that it supports her contention that we erred in holding, as a conclusion of law, that the record establishes negligence on the part of Emberlin which proximately contributed to his death, notwithstanding the contrary finding of the jury on that issue. We believe that contention is unsound, since the facts recited in the opinion of Justice Rowell, which was adopted by the Supreme Court, clearly distinguish it from the case at bar. *806That was a suit by Barron to recover for injuries sustained by him by being struck by one of the railway company’s box cars while the train was being switched in the railway yards in the town of Nacogdoches, and the features which distinguish it from the present suit appear from the following excerpt from the opinion:
“In the first place, Barron crossed this house track twice, the latter time about half a minute after the first crossing, and the second crossing of it being only some 90 or 100 feet north of his first crossing of it. When he turned west, and crossed it the first time, he exercised his senses and located the freight train which he knew to be in the yards south of him. He -found it at that time engaged in switching cars off on to the first side track west of the main line. He evidently decided that he could cross the house track in safety at that time. He then turned north, going some 90 or 100 feet, when he turned east across the house track and was almost immediately struck. It seems the cars which struck him were in 8 or 10 feet of him on the house track ■when he entered upon it. But, after he first crossed the house track, and as he walked north, he watched the cars rolling down on the track west of the main line. The jury might well have decided that, seeing these cars switching on his west, he was justified in concluding that there would be no cars practically upon him on the house track. In other words, the care exercised by Barron in looking for cars as he first crossed the house track and his further action in keeping his eyes on the cars being kicked onto the track west of the main line might have constituted such a course of conduct, in the view of some reasonable minds, as a reasonably prudent person would have adopted for his safety at the time in question. We are not prepared to say that Barron, as a matter of law, did not act for his own safety as a reasonably prudent man would have done. .This is far from being a case where a man at no point in his approach to a railroad exercises any care for his own safety.”
The decision in the case of M., K. & T. Ry. v. Merchant (Tex. Com. App.) 231 S. W. 327, also stressed by appellee, is likewise distinguishable from the case at bar, in that in that case the Commission of Appeals held that the testimony was sufficient to support the finding by the jury that Merchant looked for an approaching train before he drove his loaded truck on the railway crossing where he was killed by a passing train, and thdt he did not necessarily know of its approach, and further held that it did not conclusively appear that he began racing with the train before he reached the crossing, as contended by the .railway company. The jury further found that before going on the crossing Merchant listened for a train.
. It is .again insisted that the requested issue of appellant, which was refused by the court, to wit, “Did the drive wheel of the engine in question run over and kill R. M. Emberlin, deceased?” and the refusal of which issue we have held was error, was merely evidentiary in its character, and did not properly constitute an issue to be submitted to the jury, and, further, that we were in error in holding that there is an absence of sufficient testimony in the record to show that after the engineer first discovered Emberlin’s peril he had time, by the use of all the means at his command, to stop the engine before Emberlin was killed, if it be true that the front drive wheel of the engine killed him.
As pointed out in our original opinion, the burden was on the plaintiff to show by a preponderance of evidence her right to recover upoh the theory of discovered peril. In order to discharge that burden, it was necessary to establish two facts: First, that Emberlin’s peril was discovered by the operatives of the engine before he was killed; and, second, that such discovery was made in time to have enabled the operatives to avoid killing him by stopping the engine before he was struck. If it be true, as testified by I. O. Kinney, and also by another witness, E. M. McLain, that the front drive wheel of the engine struck and killed Emberlin, then it was incumbent upon plaintiff to show that the operatives of the" engine discovered his peril in time to have avoided killing him by stopping the engine before he was so struck. It is true that such proof may consist, in part, at least, of circumstantial evidence, but such evidence must be of facts, not merely inferences or presumptions. For illustration, it cannot be presumed that because it was his legal duty to exercise ordinary care to keep a proper lookout ahead the engineer saw Emberlin at the time he was struck by the pilot, or when he stepped upon the track in front of the engine, but it was necessary to show when, in fact, he did discover Emberlin’s peril, and that after seeing him he had time to avoid killing him by the use of means at his command, and in the exercise of ordinary care. The only evidence introduced to show when the engineer did discover Emberlin’s peril was that contained in the depositions of the engineer himself, taken by plaintiff, and the following answers of that witness were introduced by the plaintiff, and was the only testimony given by him relative to the time he first made such discovery:
“When he was lying on the ground after he was killed, I judge he was about -10 feet down the track from the place I first saw him. * * * From the time I saw the man was in danger until I brought my engine to a stop I traveled between 40 and 60 feet, I should judge. When our train came to a stop he was just behind the front baggage wheels. * * * The engine and tank ran about the length of the engine and tank from the time I saw the object coming down until we stopped.”
Plaintiff’s witness Lauck testified that after deceased was struck by the pilot the engine traveled between 80 and 100 feet before it came to a stop. Plaintiff’s witness Roy Knowles testified:
*807“The tender hit him'in the hack of the head and killed him. When the train came to a stop he was under either the baggage car or mail car.”
It was shown by other testimony without controversy that when the deceased was first struck he grabbed hold of the pilot and held to it until the engine had traveled several feet, and then fell'to the ground, where he was struck and killed. It cannot be determined from the engineer’s testimony whether the “coming down” of the deceased was when he was first struck by the pilot or when he fell therefrom later. The testimony of witness Kinney that in bis opinion the front drive wheel of the engine was about 4 or 5 feet behind the pilot beam seems not to have been contradicted by any other testimony. Even though Lauck’s testimony that the train only traveled from 4 to 5 feet after the brakes were applied be accepted as true, there is still a lack of testimony from any witness as to how far the engineer was from the air brake when he discovered Emberlin, or what length of time would be required for him to apply the brakes.
At all events, the appellant had the right to the submission of the requested issue as to whether or not Emberlin was killed by being struck by the front drive wheel of the engine rather than by being struck by the journal box of the baggage car, as testified to by several of plaintiff’s witnesses, and upon whose testimony plaintiff relied to sustain her right of recovery on the issue of discovered peril. And that defense was admissible under appellant’s general denial without the necessity of specially pleading it.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.