Court Opinion

ID: 9834095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:17:22.822482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.518167
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
As pointed out in appellee’s motion for rehearing, his witnesses Guy Sibley and *900A. A. Stein and Tom Wright were not his employees when they testified in the case, although they were such when the accident in controversy occurred; Sibley and Wright now being employed by the De Shong Motor Lines, owned by W. H. Woodlief. These facts will be read into what was said in our original opinion in discussing the testimony of those witnesses.
The evidence was ample to prove that plaintiff was injured at night in a collision with a truck marked “Pete De Shong,” through the negligence of the driver, who left the scene of the accident before-plaintiff or any one else appearing on the scene could discover' his identity. Plaintiff relied. on circumstantial evidence to show that the truck belonged to the defendant and was being driven at the time by one of his employees in the discharge of the duties of his employment, and we believe that the facts and circumstances noted in our original opinion in connection with others shown in the statement of facts were sufficient prima facie to support that contention.
The following text in 17 Texas Jur. § 117, p. 351, is supported by numerous decisions cited in the footnotes:
“Direct evidence is not required by law, but facts to be proved may be established by circumstantial evidence. Nor is circumstantial evidence necessarily rendered inadmissible because direct evidence to the same point is also produced.
“Great latitude is allowed in the reception of indirect or circumstantial evidence, and matters that are not admissible as direct evidence of a fact may become proper evidence when they are sought to be considered as evidence tending to prove the fact. As a general rule, in the absence of direct evidence, evidence of any circumstance, however slight, which conduces or tends in any degree to establish a material fact, or which affords any fair presumption or inference as to the question in dispute, or tends to make the proposition at issue more or less probable, is relevant and admissible.
“It is not necessary that the fact sought to be proved should have direct reference to the main issue, but it is sufficient if the evidence refer to a fact relevant to a fact in issue. Whatever is a condition, either of the existence or nonexistence of a relevant hypothesis, may be shown, and a circumstance which if standing alone, would not tend to prove the mam fact, in issue, is admissible, if, in connection with other evidence, it tends to prove the issue. In such cases no definite line of demarcation between proximate and remote facts can be drawn, and however remote from the main issue in point of time, place or other circumstance a fact may be, if relevant, and tending to explain the main issue, it is proper to admit evidence thereof, leaving the question of its weight to the jury.”
In section 57, p. 247 of the same volume, it is pointed out that one presumption cannot be based on another presumption, but a presumption or inference may be drawn from a relevant fact established by direct evidence, and in section 58, p. 249, this is said: “Presumptions of fact, on the other hand, pertain exclusively to and must always be drawn by the jury, where the fact inferred or presumed is to be believed- or rejected as the application of reason and common experience to the facts proved may justify, or where there are facts or circumstances in evidence which tend to rebut the presumption; and where the fact to be presumed is controverted by direct testimony the jury may indulge or reject the presumption, as the entire evidence may justify.”
We quote the following from 23 Corpus Juris, p. 57. “Marks and brands and letters on stock and other property are evidence tending the establish ownership, but in this case also the evidence is not conclusive.”
One of- the decisions cited to support that text is Edgeworth v. Wood, 58 N.J. Law, 463, 33 A. 940, in which it was held that one whose name and business address appears on a wagon in use on a public street is psima facie the owner. Defendant’s name painted on the truck being prima facie evidence of his ownership, the jury would have the right in indulge the inference that such ownership continued up to the time of the accident, and in connection with other facts in evidence was then being used by defendant’s employee in the conduct of defendant’s trucking business. See, also, Mrs. Baird’s Bakery v. Davis, supra, and other decisions there cited. In 17 Tex.Jur. § 62, p. 255, this is said: “It is a general rule, with wide applications, that where the existence of a status or a state of things, a personal relation or a custom is once established, it is presumed that such status, *901etc., continues until the contrary is shown, or until a different presumption is raised from the nature of the subject in question. This presumption applies to ownership of property. * * * ”
See, also, 22 C.J. p. 86.
Motion for rehearing is overruled.