Court Opinion

ID: 9834511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:38:54.426705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:16.640388
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
This case was not briefed by appellee and, in considering appellant’s brief and the record, a special charge requested by appellant and given by the trial court was overlooked 'by this court. This charge was substantially to the effect that if the jury believed from the evidence that. the defendant’s (appellant’s) train killed the mule alleged to have been killed within the switch limits of Murchison, and also believed that the defendant was not negligent in the operation ‘of the train, then they should not consider the value of this particular mule at all, for the reason that there was no liability for the killing unless negligence had been shown upon defendant’s part.
Eor the first time our attention is called to this charge by appellee in his motion for a rehearing. This charge and the special issues set forth in our original opinion constitute the entire charge given. Upon this phase of the case appellant requested a special charge defining negligence, by instructing the jury that if appellant kept its cattle guards near the depot at Murchison and operated its trains through Murchison at the time it was alleged that the two mules were killed, as a reasonably prudent person would have done under similar circumstances and conditions, then there would be no liability. This requested charge was sufficient, we think, to define negligence under the circumstances as consisting of failure to use ordinary care. The court refused to give it, and appellant specifically objected to the charge as given because it did not attempt to define negligence. The charge containing no definition of negligence, and appellant objeeting tout on that ground and requesting a special charge defining negligence, the charge must be held to have been fatally defective in this respect.
Furthermore, notwithstanding the fact that appellant requested the charge de>fining negligence and excepted to the charge as given because it did not. contain a definition of negligence, no charge whatever was given to the jury so much as even submitting the question of whether or not appellant’s servants exercised ordinary care in the operation of the train which it was alleged killed the mule west of Murchison on a portion of the right of way under fence. It is well settled that a railway company is liable for injuring and killing animals within the fenced portions of its right of way only when the injuries result from a lack of ordinary care. In such cases the burden is upon the plaintiff both to allege and prove a lack of such care. And, such allegation and proof being necessary, it is also necessary, when requested by the defendant, that the court should define ordinary care and submit to the jury the question of whether or not the conduct of the defendant’s employés in operating the train by which an animal is killed constitutes ordinary care. Article 6603, V. R. C. S.; I. & G. N. Ry. Co. v. Cocke, 64 Tex. 151; San Antonio, etc., Ry, Co. v. Robinson, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 400, 43 S. W. 76; Railway Co. v. Glenn, 8 Tex. Civ. App. 301, 30 S. W. 845; Railway Co. v. Meithvein (Tex. Civ. App.) 33 S. W. 1093; Railway Co. v. Swan, 97 Tex. 338, 78 S. W. 920.
The errors in the trial above pointed out being manifest, the motion for a rehearing is overruled.