Court Opinion

ID: 9827706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:47:38.632539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:34.965534
License: Public Domain

On Motion to Correct Findings of Fact and for Rehearing.
• At appellees’ request we make the following corrections in the statement of facts con*369tained in our opinion heretofore filed in this ease: ' .
The statement that the train which struck and killed Walter Jones “was running on schedule time” is inaccurate and misleading. The train was running on schedule time in the sense that it was running at its usual or scheduled rate of speed at the time of the accident, but it did not reach the crossing at which the accident occurred at its usual or scheduled time of passing this crossing. The evidence shows that it was behind time, and there is testimony to sustain a finding that it was about one hour late. The fact that the evidence shows that the train was late was not called to our attention in appellees’ brief, and we do not regard such fact as controlling or material. The contention of ap-pellees in their motion for rehearing that, the train being late, the deceased Walter Jones could reasonably have presumed that it had passed the crossing before he reached it, and was therefore relieved of the duty of using ordinary care to discover the approach of the train before going upon the crossing, cannot be sustained.
The record shows that Jones, on the evening of the accident, had gone from .Crowley, a station upon appellant’s road several miles west of the crossing, to the town of Bayne, which is situated on the railroad a few miles east of the crossing, and was returning to Crowley when the accident occurred. The road from Crowley to Bayne over which he traveled in making this trip was along the railroad track, and if the train had been on time he could have seen it pass, and he could not have assumed when he went upon the crossing that it had not passed.
We have carefully considered the motion for rehearing, and feel constrained to adhere to the conclusion expressed in our original opinion that reasonable minds cannot differ in the conclusion that the undisputed evidence shows that if Jones had used ordinary care to discover the approach of the train before going upon the track he could not have failed to have seen it, and that his failure to use such care was the direct cause of his death. Such being our view of the evidence, the fact that the jury did not so view it cannot control our judgment. As said by this court in the case of Railway Co. v. Loeffler, 59 S. W. 562:
“We fully recognize the importance of a strict observance by the court of the rule that jurors are the exclusive judges of the credibility of witnesses, and of the weight to be given to their testimony, but this rule neither requires nor.contemplates that the mind and conscience of the court shall be entirely and unreservedly, surrendered to the judgment of a jury upon all questions of fact that may arise in the trial of a case. When the verdict of a jury is so against the weight and preponderance of the-evidence as to be clearly wrong, it is the duty of the court to set such verdict aside; and the grave responsibility thus placed upon the judiciary of determining whether or not the evidence in a particular case is legally sufficient to deprive a citizen of his property cannot be evaded.”
We are of opinion that the motion for rehearing should be overruled and it has been so ordered.
Overruled.