Court Opinion

ID: 9833102
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:27:12.749113+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:59.670969
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
[10,11] In its motion for rehearing appellant calls our attention to the fact that appellee in her pleadings failed to allege negligence on the part of appellant and its employes, in failing to know or discover that the bos had been placed beneath the step where appellee alighted from the car, and therefore that we were not justified in using the following language in our original opinion, to wit:
“Appellant predicates its contention that it was not negligent principally upon the asserted ground that the conductor of the car in question did not know that the box upon which Mrs. Berry alighted was there, and did not know of its unsafe and unstable condition; but we are of the opinion that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the finding of the jury that the conductor did know, or should have known in the exercise of that high degree of care due a passenger, that said box had been placed near the track and immediately under and in front of the step prior to Mrs. Berry’s stepping thereon, and that the box was not safe for the purposes and uses to which it was put.”
But the jury found, in answer to Special Issue No. 1, that the defendant company and its agents (including the conductor) did know that the box had been so placed. While the conductor testified that he did not know that the box had been so placed, we conclude, from the evidence quoted in the original opinion, that the jury were' justified in finding as they did. The conductor was on the rear platform when Mrs. Davis boarded the car, she using the box as she got on; and he testified that he assisted her in getting on, and there being nothing to prevent the conductor from seeing Denton as he got the box and placed it for Mrs. Davis to use. While there is no positive and direct evidence that the conductor saw the box so placed, the circumstances shown are sufficient to sustain the finding of the jury upon this issue. A jury is not required to believe a witness, although he makes a plain statement of what is not impossible, and is neither impeached nor contradicted by direct evidence, but may discredit him on account of the manner of testifying and the attendant circumstances. G., H. & S. A. Ry. Co. v. Murray, 99 S. W. 144, and cases there cited. We withdraw, as inappropriate in the connection used, so much of our language, quoted above, as reads as follows, “or should have known in the exercise of that high degree of care due a passenger,” but otherwise we adhere to the conclusion stated.
Counsel for appellant seems to fail to understand the application of the language used in our original opinion in discussing the assignment directed to the admission of the testimony of W. F. Carr, for, in this motion, he says:
“Appellant does not dispute the correctness of the language of the court in stating that if the purpose of this testimony had been to fix the date of the accident to Mrs. Berry, or to fix the date when he heard some other fact, or to impress the jury with his capacity for remembering certain facts about which he testifies, that it would not be open to the objection urged by appellant that it was hearsay,” etc.
It is true that Carr’s desired testimony was not directly upon the accident to Mrs. Berry, but rather to show that, at or about the time and prior to said accident, he, Carr, had seen a box at the side of the street near the track, and that said box had been used frequently by passengers in boarding and alighting from the car. He could not be permitted to testify that it was the same box involved in this controversy, but he could describe the location of the box, the kind of box it was, and the time he saw it, and it was for the jury to determine whether or not it was the same box as used at the time of the accident to Mrs. Berry. In order to fix the time when he saw the box with reference to Mrs. Berry’s accident, the date of which was not in dispute, we held that he could testify that he had been informed by his wife of Mrs. Berry’s accident.
As to other matters urged in appellant’s motion, we think they have been sufficiently discussed in the original opinion.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.