Court Opinion

ID: 9826180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:29:30.382606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:20.707844
License: Public Domain

*248Order on Petition eor Rehearing
On examination of the appellant’s petition for rehearing, we find that certain occurrences in the lower Court were, perhaps, not made clear in the opinion of this Court. The record discloses the following:
The plaintiff’s first amended complaint was demurred to by the defendant on the grounds, briefly stated, first, because it was only alleged that the train was stopped on the crossing, in the nighttime, without any precaution being taken to notify persons using the highway of the presence of the railroad tracks; and, second, because there were no allegations claiming that the defendant had violated the provisions of Sections 5829 and 8380 of the Code. After the demurrer was overruled, the plaintiff, without objection on the part of the defendant, obtained the leave of the Court to again amend his complaint so as to meet the objections set forth in the defendant’s first ground of demurrer. There was no demurrer to the second amended complaint, on which the case was tried, and its essential allegations were set forth in the Court’s opinion.
In the third and fourth paragraphs of the petition for rehearing, appellant says that we overlooked the fact that the demurrer was to the first, and not to the second, amended complaint. The appellant, however, is mistaken as to that; but we did not deem it necessary to go into the details now mentioned..
The case having been tried on the second amended complaint, to which there was no demurrer, and not on the first amended complaint, that complaint really passed out of the case. The exceptions of the appellant, as to the refusal of the Court to sustain its demurrer, might, therefore, very properly, have been entirely disregarded. In view of the fact, however, that, on the motion for a nonsuit, and perhaps also on the motion for a directed verdict, the appellant raised, or intended to raise, the same questions as to Sections 5829 and 8380 that were raised in the' demurrer, and *249its exceptions questioning the correctness of the rulings on the motion for a nonsuit, and the motion for a directed verdict, we properly considered the questions pertaining to those sections. We did not, however, pass specifically upon the other ground of the demurrer for, when the amended complaint had been again amended to meet the objections interposed by the appellant to the first amended complaint, that ground of the demurrer was clearly no longer involved in the case.
It is said in the fifth paragraph of the petition that we overlooked the fact that the undisputed testimony showed that, at the time of the collision, the train, with which the plaintiff collided, was in the act of moving out of the siding. Perhaps the railroad company did so contend, but we cannot agree that the undisputed testimony so showed. The plaintiff testified that the train was standing still at the time of the collision.
The appellant says also that there was “absolutely no testimony of any one who knew” that the highway in question was a much-traveled highway. The appellant again is viewing the testimony in the case from its own viewpoint. The plaintiff testified that the highway “was the best of a County road,” that he would describe it as “a much traveled road,” and, on his cross examination, he said, “I have heard a whole lot of folks say it was much used, since then, some of your witnesses.”
The appellant appears to be apprehensive that this Court has decided that “when a traveler on the highway collides with a train on a crossing, and when nothing else appears,” then “a jury issue is made.” A reading of the question, stated by the Court to be the only one to be determined in the cause, which question was answered in the affirmative, will clearly show that the appellant’s fears are without basis.
The Court discussed fully all the legal principles involved in the case; it gave the appellant the benefit of all the questions it raised, even if some of them *250may not have been properly involved in the appeal; and we declared what was conceived to be the proper legal principle as applicable to the facts, viewed from the plaintiff’s standpoint, as we were required to do in the consideration of a motion for a nonsuit or one for a directed verdict.
The petition for rehearing is dismissed, and the order staying the remittitur is revoked.
Messrs. Justices Stabler, Carter and Bonham and Mr. -Acting Associate Justice W. C. Cothran concur.