Court Opinion

ID: 9828966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:53:31.473444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:55.762927
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[12] Appellant in an extended argument, supplemented by multitudinous authorities, is insistent we erred in our original opinion, and that this cause should be reversed. We are inclined to think there is some misconception as to our duty and power to find facts in a given cause where our findings are in accordance with the judgment and verdict of the lower court, which is the same power in this respect existent in the Supreme Court before the creation fof the Court of Civil Appeals; the Supreme Cburt under the Jaw retaining jurisdiction only of legal questions. In this cause appellant argues: “There is not a great deal of testimony in this record, when it is analyzed, as to the popping of the whip by the driver.” We thought there was considerable, especially when appellant’s own driver testified “that just as Mr. Taylor’s horse went to wheel I had popped the whip,” at a distance of about 20 feet away; and on account of the team being slow he had to “hit pretty good •licks,” and, when he hit his horses on this particular occasion, he thought “the whip cracked.” This whip was 5% to 6 feet in length, and in approaching appellee’s horse with' his team on parallel line in passing he would not have missed the buggy over 5 feet according to his own testimony, considering which, in connection with the distance he was from appellee’s horse, when the latter swerved and started to run, and the extension of a man’s arm in the use of the whip practically towards the face of appellee’s horse, we concluded was negligence. The driver in an approaching vehicle with that character of a whip, reaching in that direction, practically towards the face of the horse, especially when “the whip cracked,” *624we are inclined to think was calculated to make “Dobbin” move; and however much care a man may use in popping his whip, or whatever, the driver might think as to his own care, the indubitable act speaks for itself; especially when the actor, however much he thinks he is performing a harmless act, has full knowledge of the situation. We are not applying res ipsa loquitur, but the mere commission of an act, without more, in some situations may be negligence, and the law charges the party with the consequences. We thought it our duty to find this, and that from the great preponderance of the testimony such action caused the injuries, in fact, we believed the substantial justice of the cause demanded it. Of course, we may misconceive the application of the law with reference to the numerous special charges submitted by the appellant; but after having found this pertinent fact, believing the record cogent with the suggestiveness of the same, we are unable to see error, and, though in the original opinion we gave considerable discussion to appellant’s brief, we believe some of it was probably unnecessary in view of the potency of the negligence of appellant’s driver, so prominent in this record.
The Express Company is also insistent that we erred in the fifth paragraph of our original opinion in not sustaining its contention in regard to the appropriateness of the special charge refused by the trial court, and discussed by us.
Aside from the disintegration of this charge exhibiting distinct disjunctive propositions, and then conjunctive, which objection, of course, would be technical, however, in the face of our findings and the character of testimony in this record, we believe our ruling is not error. If appellant will permit us, we think.the following with the interpolation in parentheses is what appellee meant, notwithstanding appellant insists that it is not our duty to so construe it; “At the time I had to look I saw what it was that caused the horse’s fright. I saw a large express wagon with a very high top and was drawn by two horses. (I saw) they- were driven by a man who was slashing his horses with a whip.” We can understand that appellant’s answer can be the interpolation is not what appellee said. However, we think the reasonable construction of his testimony is that that is exactly what he meant and that he was referring to the actions of the driver; and appellant in his special charge desires a segregation of the wagon and the top as a substantive issue to the jury for a substantial defense, which we think, without trenching upon the line of cases quoted by appellant, is improper as applicable to the facts of this case. Of course, a single fact or a grouping of facts may become a substantive defense in any case, and the difference in cases demands a discriminative application of the rules, which we may, of course, be not observing in this cause; but it is to be noted that appellant does not negative any other ground of negligence to the jury as a predicate of plaintiff’s recovery in the special charge, which could be a proximate cause, and with reference to which the jury is not instructed .to find does not exist before finding the wagon and top was the proximate cause. It is often the case that a result will not occur without a concurring cause, and such other concurring cause still may constitute the proximate cause. Without an analysis of the long line of cases which hold it to be error for a charge of the court to make a segregation' of particular circumstances, “disregarding other circumstances bearing upon the situation,” we think that this charge trenches more upon that line of cases, considering the circumstances of this record, than the numerous decisions cited by appellant. Passmore on Instructions to Juries, p. 95.
We believe for the reasons given in our original opinion, and upon reconsideration of this record, that the substantial merits of this cause have been solved, and the trial court has not committed such error, if any at all, as will justify a reversal of this case, and the motion for rehearing is overruled.