Court Opinion

ID: 9828978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:54:11.741487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:52.074855
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We wish to say, in answer to the motion for rehearing, that we do not believe there is any error in the charge on unavoidable accident.
Who is sought to be charged with negligence, in this case?
Hodges, who was the plaintiff below, was riding with Henry J’ohnson. Hodges had no control over the car." No issue was submitted to the jury in an effort to have a finding that Hodges was guilty of any act of negligence. No such issue was submitted, because no evidence was introduced that raised such issue.
Hodges sought by his pleadings to hold Henry Johnson and Johnson Bros, responsible for the, accident in which he was injured. If it could be said that the issue of unavoidable accident was raised by the evidence, then the charge is not erroneous, in that it actually covers the persons who are charged with negligence.
The charge stipulates: “Unavoidable accident, as that term is used in this charge, means an event or happening that takes place without negligence on the part of any party sought to be charged with the bringing about of said event, which proximately contributed thereto.”
No objection is urged against the charge on the theory that the names of the par*376ties concerned are not incorporated in the charge.
That is to say, the form of the charge is not criticised by appellant. Appellant’s criticism is that it was necessary for the trial court to give two charges on the issue of unavoidable accident. One as between Hodges and Henry Johnson, and the other as between Hodges and Johnson Bros.
Under the Supreme Court case cited in our original opinion (Dallas Railway & Terminal Co. v. Price, supra), this objection would be well taken if Hodges were charged with contributory negligence, and if the evidence were sufficient to raise such issue.
But there is no evidence tending to show that Hodges was guilty of any act of contributory negligence, and the charge as given actually covers the two parties who are charged with negligence, proximately contributing to the accident, both of whom contend that they' were not guilty of any act of negligence.
In passing upon the issue raised by the charge, when taken, as we must, in connection with the entire charge, as given, the jury must of necessity have understood the charge to mean that the accident was unavoidable if it occurred without negligence upon the part of Henry Johnson and Johnson Bros. They are the persons sought to be charged with the bringing about of the accident.
No attempt was made to establish the fact that some person or thing acting independently of either or both of the defendants brought about the accident.
Here each defendant sought to show that he was guilty of no act of negligence, but that his co-defendant’s negligence caused the accident.
The following cases hold that the evidence must present a specific theory under which the accident could have happened, notwithstanding the fact that all the parties exercised such degree of care as is required by law. Magnolia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Jordan, 124 Tex. 347, 78 S. W.2d 944, 97 A.L.R. 1513; Green v. Texas & Pac. R. Co., 125 Tex. 168, 81 S.W.2d 669; Orange & N. W. R. Co. v. Harris, 127 Tex. 13, 89 S.W.2d 973.
We fully recognize the difficulty of avoiding the confusion that has arisen in these “unavoidable accident cases,” and add that we think the line of decisions just mentioned present the better view of this troublesome question.
We do not believe that the evidence in the case before us raises the issue of unavoidable accident. The collision occurred on the public highway, when the two motor vehicles involved “side-swiped”, and no other person or thing entered into, or contributed to, the accident. But, if we concede that the issue was raised, still we see no error in th$ charge as applied to this case.
The case of Anizan v. Paquette, 113 S. W.2d 196, by the Galveston Court of Civil Appeals, supports our views in the instant suit. The Supreme Court dismissed an application for a writ of error in that case.
The only difference between that case and the one at bar is that the guest statute applied in the former case and does not apply here.
A forceful opinion in the case of Younger Bros. v. Power, Tex.Civ.App., 118 S.W.2d 954, in which a writ was likewise dismissed, also supports our views.
Adopting the language of that opinion [page 958] : “To say that this accident could not have been prevented by either one or the other of the two parties to it by the use of means suggested by common prudence—that is,'by each of them having remained on his own right-hand side of the black stripe in the center of that highway—is to belie - the direct testimony of them both * * *
It is self-evident that if each of the vehicles involved in this suit had kept on his side of the highway, the cars could not have “side-swiped”.
The motion is overruled.