Court Opinion

ID: 9828313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:17:14.630213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:47.057045
License: Public Domain

'WILLSON, C. J.
(after stating the facts as above). [1, 2] Keeping in mind the rule that required appellant’s conductor to use the care a very cautious, prudent, and competent person would have used for Mrs. Steed’s safety when he saw her walking toward him in the aisle of the car (Railway Co. v. Halloren, 53 Tex. 46, 37 Am. Rep. 744; St. John v. Ry. Co., 80 S. W. 235), we nevertheless are of the opinion the trial court erred when he refused appellant’s request that he instruct the jury to return a verdict in its favor; for we do not think the facts proven warranted a finding that said conductor acted as such a person would not have acted. We think a very cautious, prudent, and competent person reasonably would not have expected or foreseen that injury to Mrs. Steed would result from his obstructing the aisle as the conductor did, and therefore we think that the injury she suffered should have been regarded as due to an accident for which appellant was not responsible. Railway Co. v. Brown, 75 S. W. 807. As supporting a contrary view appellees cite City of Ft. Worth v. Patterson, 196 S. W. 251, Houston Chronicle Pub. Co. v. Lemmon, 193 S. W. 347, Railway Co. v. Barrett, 46 Tex. Civ. App. 14, 101 S. W. 1025, 121 S. W. 570, and Beiser v. Railway Co., 152 Ky. 522, 153 S. W. 742, 43 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1050. In the Patterson Case the question was not one as to whether the city jvas negligent, but as to whether its negligence was the proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff or not. And so in the Barrett Case the question decided was one as to proximate cause, the court saying, “the injurious, proximate, and natural consequences of an act of negligence are deemed to be foreseen.” In the Lemmon Case it appeared that the carrier for a newspaper threw “a tightly rolled paper, so as to make it a compact body,” among women and children, injuring one of them. The court properly held, we think, that the jury had a right to say that in the exercise of ordinary care the carrier should have anticipated that injury would result from his act, and therefore that he was negligent. In the Beiser Case, decided by the Kentucky Court of Appeals, it appeared that the plaintiff was tripped and thereby caused to fall by a suit case left by a passenger in the aisle of the ear she was riding in. On the ground that the railway company was not guilty of negligence in not discovering the suit case in the aisle and removing it before the plaintiff stumbled over it, the trial court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the railway company. The appellate court thought this was error, and reversed the judgment, not because the testimony warranted a finding of negligence on the part of the company for not discovering and removing the suit case, but because of testimony which would have warranted a finding that the railway company was guilty of negligence in that it did not have the car properly lighted so that plaintiff could see the suit case in time to avoid stumbling over it. It is obvious, we think, that the rulings made in the eases specified are not inconsistent with the conclusion reached by us in this one.
The judgment will be reversed, and judgment will be here rendered that appellees take nothing by their suit against appellant.

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