Court Opinion

ID: 9830872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:34:37.434346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:27.810674
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The plaintiff and the defendant railway company have each filed motions for rehearing in which a vigorous attack is made upon our holdings above with reference to the issues of contribution and high degree of care. .Such attack is predicated chiefly upon the alleged insufficiency of the defendant Glazer’s pleadings to raise these issues. Since the plaintiff alleged the relationship of passenger and carrier as between her and the railway company and the defendant Glazer filed a general denial to the - whole of her pleadings, the contention is made that Glazer is estopped to assert such a relationship in the absence of an affirma--tive allegation on his part that such relationship existed and, such being true, Glaz-< er has no right to complain as to the court’s-failure to present to the jury the correct degree of care due the plaintiff by the railway company, the defendant Glazer thus losing his right to contribution.
After another very careful exam-' ination of the record it is still our opinion that the defendant Glazer’s pleadings were sufficient to present the question of high' degree of care in regard to the conduct of the railway company and to raise the issue of contribution. After the general demurrer, special exceptions and general denial of the defendant Glazer, there followed the' following allegations:
“That said collision and injury, if any, of 1 plaintiff was caused by the following acts of negligence of the operator and/or operators of defendant’s street car or cars while acting within the scope of their em- ‘ ployment.
“(a) Operating or driving said street cam into the intersection in question at a speed • in excess of 18 miles per hour, in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of Ordinance No. 421, which provides in substance as follows: (here follows provisions of such ordinance).
“This defendant * * * would further show that said act of negligence was the sole proximate cause of this collision.
“(b) In the alternative this defendant would show that said street car was operated or driven on a highway in the City of Dallas at a speed that was greater than was ' reasonable and prudent under the conditions then existing, and that such negligence was the sole proximate cause of the collision in question.
“(c) In the alternative this defendant says that said street car on the occasion in question was operated at a greater rate of speed than a person of ordinary prudence would have operated it under the surrounding circumstances, and that said negligence . was the sole proximate cause of the collision in question.”
Following the allegations just quoted the defendant Glazer further alleged that the operator of the street-car failed to keep a ■ proper lookout; that he failed to have the ■ street-car under proper control; that he ■ was “making change for passengers and re- - ceiving fare, as a result of which the attention of the operator of said car was at the: time and on the occasion in question dis*360tracted from his duty in operating or driving said street-car” (italics- ours) ; that the operator of both the north bound and the south bound street-cars were each negligent in entering the intersection after the other had entered; and that each of such acts was negligence and constituted the sole proximate cause of the collision. The defendant Glazer in his prayer for relief asked that if for any reason he should be held liable to the plaintiff in any respect that he have judgment over and against the defendant railway company for contribution, and for such other and further relief to which he might be justly entitled.
We direct attention to the above allegation of Glazer in regard to the speed of the street-car wherein he alleged that such street-car was operated at a speed that was “greater than was reasonable and prudent under the conditions then existing”, and at a “greater rate of speed than a person of ordinary prudence would have operated it under the surrounding circumstances”. One of the “conditions then existing” and one of the “surounding circumstances” was that the plaintiff was a passenger on the street-car of the railway company, a fact about which all the parties were fully cognizant. In the absence of a special exception it is our opinion that these allegations constituted a sufficient predicate for our holdings on these issues in our original opinion.
If we be mistaken in our conclusions that the pleadings of Glazer are adequate to raise the issue of contribution, such theory could be completely stricken from the case and still the defendant Glazer would be entitled to have the high degree of care charged against the railway company by reason of his specific defense that each of the various alleged negligent acts of the railway company constituted the sole proximate cause of the collision. There could be no doubt of the meaning of his pleadings in this respect. By such assertions he was definitely attempting to shift the entire responsibility to his co-defendant. If the defendant Glazer had been .successful in establishing such defense he would have been acquitted of any liability regardless of the question of contribution, and again we repeat that if the proper degree of care had been placed upon his co-defendant his efforts in this respect might have been more fruitful.
In this connection we wish, to call attention to the familiar and often cited case of Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Conley et ux., 113 Tex. 472, 260 S.W. 561, 32 A.L.R. 1183. That case, ydiich involved a carrier of passengers, was submitted upon a general charge wherein the jury was instructed that a “carrier of passengers is required to exercise the greatest degree of care which can be exercised under all the circumstances short of a warranty of its passengers”. The Supreme Court of Texas held that such an instruction, as far as the railway company was concerned, was affirmatively erroneous in that it imposed a greater burden and duty upon the railway company than is required by law, and that it was calculated to mislead the jury. If this instruction imposing such excessive burden was prejudicial to the rights of the railway company in that case, we think in the instant case it is inescapable that an instruction or definition imposing a lesser burden upon the railway company than that required by law, was prejudicial to the rights of the defendant Glazer in his defensive attempt to shift the entire responsibility to his co-defendant, and, as to him at least, such charge was affirmatively erroneous.
The motions for rehearing are overruled.