Court Opinion

ID: 9828047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:02:37.377251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:42.133591
License: Public Domain

CONNER, C. J.
[1] Appellant’s first assignment of error must be overruled on the ground that the court’s charge expressly precluded a verdict for the defendant on the ground that plaintiff had failed to have his message repeated. The jury were specifically instructed to find for the plaintiff, unless-they found against him on the issue of an agreement to deliver the telegram to the-addressee in person. The error of the court, therefore, if any, in overruling plaintiff’s first special exception, and in permitting the introduction of the special provision of the telegraphic contract referred to, was harmless.
[2] What we have said in disposing of the first and second assignments of error applies, also, to the objection made in the third assignment. It is not reasonably probable that the jury understood from the language of the charge that they could give effect to the special provision relating to the repetition of the message in view of the very clear instruction that, if they found the oral contract as alleged by the plaintiff, they would find for him, and the special charge referred to in the fourth assignment could not have added force to the charge actually given. The third and fourth assignments are therefore overruled.
[3,4] Assuming that appellant presented in his petition the independent ground of recovery contemplated by his special charge No. 2, though this is not very clear, we think the court’s ruling in rejecting it cannot be set aside. The charge authorized a verdict merely on findings that appellant explained to the sending agent that he desired the telegram delivered to the addressee in person, and that thereafter such agent gave the false information that the telegram had been so delivered. These facts alone would not support a recovery in the absence of a further finding that appellant undertook the trip to Bristol on the-faith of the information given, for the reason that without notice that such action would be taken by appellant in reliance upon the information the special damages occasioned by the trip cannot be said to have been in contemplation of the agent or telegraph company at the time. See M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Belcher, 89 Tex. 428, 35 S. W. 6. The charge, therefore, was properly rejected as being on the weight of the evidence in assuming in effect that appellant’s trip was undertaken on the faith of the statement of the agent that the telegram had been delivered to P. M. Harris in person.
The criticisms of the charge made in the sixth and seventh assignments we think are without merit, and the evidence complained of in the eighth assignment seems entirely harmless, in view of the further undisputed testimony that the regular rate for the transmission of the telegram was 80 cents, as shown by tariff sheets properly admitted in evidence, and in view of the further fact *445that there is no contention that the 80 cents paid by him for the transmission and delivery of the message was insufficient, or that it was intended for the delivery to be any place other than at Bristol, Tenn.
The record has been carefully considered, but we find no reversible error presented, and accordingly feel constrained to overrule all assignments and affirm the judgment.