Court Opinion

ID: 9829940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:44:34.171404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:09.147605
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee Jenkins insists that, conceding two distinct issues of fact were submitted in question 1, they were submitted in the conjunctive, and merely placed a greater burden on him, about which appellant has no right to complain; and therefore the error was harmless and within rule 62a. This contention is probably correct, but becomes immaterial, since we are reversing the cause upon other grounds. In this connection appellee Jenkins asserts in his statement and argument of this motion that—
“While the plaintiff’s petition charged different acts of negligence, still at the trial it was narrowed down under the testimony to the question of whether or not the motorman kept a proper lookout at the time of the accident.”
This being true, it makes appellant’s objection to the court’s charge for failing to define what would constitute a proper lookout by the motorman operating the car at the time of the accident all the more pertinent. Appellant objected to the charge for failing to define “a proper lookout,” and submitted a special issue embodying a proper definition of that term; which was refused by the court. The court defined ordinary care and negligence in general terms. It also instructed the jury that—
“The law imposed upon employee of the defendant the duty to exercise ordinary care to operate its car with due regard for the safety and welfare of persons driving along or across its tracks, and the failure to exercise such a degree of care should be negligence, as the term negligence is above defined.”
We think these definitions and instructions as applied by the court relate to the manner in which the car was being operat*179ed, and to the first question submitted in issue 1 requiring the jury to answer: “Was the motorman in charge of defendant’s car driving same in a careless and negligent manner?” These charges and instructions do not define or instruct the jury as to what constitutes a “proper lookout” on the part of the motorman as to persons who might be on or near the track.
 In the second question submitted in question 1, “and without keeping a proper lookout for persons who might go on or near its tracks,” the jury is left without a guide or instruction to determine if the motorman kept a “proper lookout.” The law imposes on the motorman of a street car the duty to keep such a lookout for persons who might be on or near the track on which he is operating the car as an ordinary person engaged in a like or similar capacity and under like or similar circumstances would keep; and, where the sole act of negligence relied upon for a recovery is the failure of the motorman to keep such proper lookout, a charge which does not define to the jury what constitutes such proper lookout is defective, and requires a reversal of the cause; proper and timely objections having been made to it.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Overruled.