Court Opinion

ID: 9832788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:12:06.100636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:52.668951
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing appellant insists that in the submission of special -issue No. 4 to the jury the trial court assumed a duty on the part of appellant and its employees to stop the train at Rose street switch a reasonably sufficient length of time to enable the appellee to alight. Question No. 4 is as follows:
“Did the defendant’s employees who. were in charge of the train in question fail to stop said train at the switch in controversy a reasonably sufficient length of time within which to permit plaintiff Arthur V. Williams, by exercising reasonable diligence and dispatch, to alight from said train before said train was again put in motion? Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ ”
We have carefully considered appellant’s argument on this question, but are unable to concur therein. The question of whether appellant owed any duty to appellee to stop its train at the place ,and for the time inquired about in that issue was not, to our minds, assumed in the issue submitted. That duty arose, if at all, as a matter of law on account of the findings of fact made by the jury on other issues submitted, and we are unable to understand how the form and manner of submitting issue No. 4, above copied, could have in any manner influenced the jury! in its answers to the other issues submitted.
It is also argued at length and with much vigor that, appellee having admitted that his injuries were occasioned by the manner and way in which the train came bads, and having admitted that he would not have been injured, except fon the negligence of the operatives in backing the train in the manner and way that they did, and having admitted that, had the train come back in the usual and ordinary manner with which he was familiar, the question relating to the failure of the^employees to stop the train a reasonably sufficient length of time isi not in the case, for the reason that such failure could not have been the proximate cause of appellee’s injuries. The effect of appellee’s testimony is that, notwithstanding the fact that the train was put in motipn before he had had time to alight therefrom, still he would not have been injured had the train been moved slowly and in the usual and ordinary manner, because he would have been able to alight from such moving train without injury to himself; in other words, appellee’s testimony makes out a case of two concurring acts of negligence. Failure to stop the train long enough is but another way of stating that it was started too soon. Injury could not result from the failure to start, but from the positive act of starting. This evidence makes a case of negligence in starting the train too soon, as well as negligence in the manner in which same was. started. These two negligent acts concurred to cause appellee’s injuries. The latter ground of negligence was'improperly submitted. We believe the former was properly submitted, and will support the judgment upon the theory that, where two concurring acts of negligence are the proximate cause of an injury, recovery may Ke had upon either.
The motion for rehearing has been carefully considered; but we believe that the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed, and the motion is therefore overruled.