Court Opinion

ID: 9827690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:46:43.877493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:34.558666
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Counsel for appellant earnestly insist that, in affirming'the judgment of the lower court, we erred in our conclusions of fact. We adhere to the conclusions deduced from the facts as contained in our original opinion, but, in order that no injustice may be done appellant, and because the evidence upon the question of the character of the dirt road which crosses appellee’s railroad at the place of accident is brief, we herewith by this method incorporate same in the opinion:
J. L. Webb testified: “I lived in that community before the railroad was built there. I could not say exactly the number of years the railroad was built before this town was built in this particular place, but, in my judgment, it was more than five years. The whole community there was originally called Massey, from J. M. Massey. The public road before the railroad was built was the north and south road from Floyd to Oaddo Mills, and was west of where the accident happened. There is a crossing further west down there, and that one was known as the Cow-skin-Greenville road. This crossing is about 200 yards west of where the accident happened. There was no dirt road here at all before the railroad was built; that was in a farm. After the town was platted and the streets made, then the railroad company built a section house, and the crossing took place. That has been used as a public crossing ever since the road was put in there. The county wqrks it and grades it. It’was graded about two weeks ago by the county.”
W. T. Edgar testified: “That road that runs between the stores and crosses the track there at that point, we call it a public road; I don’t know any name for it. It runs from Caddo Mills to Floyd. The commissioners put grades there, and the commissioners and all of them worked it over. I have always considered it a public road worked by the hands.”
Appellant testified: “I had been living in that neighborhood most of the time for about nine years. I guess that road that runs between the stores and across the railroad track has- been there ever since I have been there. It was used by the public. Right here for the last year or so it has been used more so than it was before. This here big gin lot — this road goes right through a gin lot, and up until a year or so ago this gin lot was fenced, and, if you went that road, you had to go right down the railroad between this fence and the railroad. While that gin lot fence was up, the road crossed from the south and turned right down on the north side of the track; it has been about two years, since they tore the fence down. For the last two years there has been more travel over that road than before that. As far as I know the road was generally used by the public. It was a plain road right be*1129tween the stores on out north; that road run right north. Leaving the stores where I had stopped, X drove on north. I drove down to the railroad and drove off across the railroad. In going from home to Caddo Mills the morning of this accident, I crossed this railroad at, I think they call it, the lower crossing; there is a crossing right opposite the store, and then there is one down below that always was called the lower crossing. Those crossings are 100 yards or 150 or 140, or somewhere along there apart. I had frequently passed over this crossing. I knew about where the gin lot was and how the road went down the railroad. It seems to me that this road had been opened up through the gin lot about two years. They had opened the gin lot so they could drive across there, and after that this crossing was used more frequently than before. Q. This lower crossing, which was about 150 yards west of this, had been used continuously all the time; that was the most prominent and public, was it? A. I guess it was used some more than this before this. Q'. Especially before this was opened up it was used a good deal more than this — before they opened the gin lot? A. Might have been used some more; yes, sir. After you get out from between the stores you can take either course, or you can go straight ahead and go by the gin íot. I had crossed the lower crossing several yards west of this one that morning; my wife and my little girl were with me. No, sir; there is not a lane on the north side of the railroad north of this lower crossing going north that you enter or go out of going south down by the schoolhouse. Going north from the schoolhouse you do not strike a lane there anywhere. There is a lane on the south side of the railroad after you get past the right of way going south; there is none on the north side at all. Well, now, speaking about that lane, there is a lane, but it don’t run up to the railroad; it is a lane both roads converge and enter; both roads come together about the time you get to it. The road that goes by the lower crossing west and the one I was traveling at the time the áccident happened come together just before you get to that lane going north. The mouth of that lane is right due north of this road I was traveling in going with my wagon that morning. When I came from Caddo Mills, I would come up here (indicating) — there’s the stores on the east side and this is the stores on the west side — now, I could turn this way and come on down here and cross down there and go north and then to my house, or I could go straight across, and go on either side of this gin, and come up here going diagonally across the lot, and strike the Floyd road (the same road) down here.”