Court Opinion

ID: 9675187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:44:16.33341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:32.195215
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Calvert,
concurring.
By their holding that the evidence in this case does not raise the issue of discovered peril the majority have usurped a function long held by this Court to belong to a jury. The function usurped is that of deciding whether the exercise of ordinary care in the use of all the means at hand to avoid an injury requires the use of an available means alternative to, or in combination with, the means selected by the actor.
As long ago as San Antonio & A. P. Ry. Co. v. Hodges, 102 Texas 524, 120 S.W. 848, 849, we stated the rule in these words:
“But, whenever a real question exists under evidence whether or not precautions should have been taken other and different from those which the party judged to be sufficient and therefore took, that question is for the jury to decide by applying the standard of care of a person of ordinary prudence, and it should be left to the jury by the charge
The rule was analyzed and restated in Missouri K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Reynolds, 103 Texas 31, 122 S.W. 531, 532, as follows:
“What the law requires is the exercise of the care to avoid injury which persons of ordinary prudence would use in such *237emergencies. This care must, of course, be proportioned to the danger, but what acts and expedients constitute it in a given situation is a question to be determined by the jury, and not by the court. San Antonio & A. P. Ry. Co. v. Hodges, 120 S.W. 848; 2 Thompson on Neg. Secs. 1734, 1738. The evidence shows that several things suggested themselves as proper to be done and that some of these were done, or attempted, by the employés to avert the collision. Was it best for the employés to do as the jury might find they did, or that they should have directed their attention more to stopping of the engine? Was what they did in the emergency in which they thus suddenly found themselves the exercise of that kind and’ degree of care that men of ordinary prudence would have used in their situation? We think it quite clear that these are questions to be determined by the jury, and to be determined from the facts and circumstances as they existed and appeared at the time, and not by looking backward and inquiring merely whether or not the event proved that some other course than that pursued would have been more effectual in preventing the injury.”
In keeping with the foregoing rule, it has been held in a long series of cases that liability under the discovered peril doctrine can be predicated on the failure of train operatives, after discovery of a plaintiff’s peril, to blow a whistle or ring a bell, even though such operatives are doing all in their power to bring the train to a halt and thus avoid injury. Trochta v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co., Texas Com. App., 218 S.W. 1038; Houston & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Stevenson, Texas Com. App., 29 S.W. 2d 995; Houston E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Sherman, Texas Com. App., 42 S.W. 2d. 241; Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Krasoff, 144 Texas 436, 191 S.W. 2d 1; Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Foster, Texas Civ. App., 266 S.W. 2d 206, writ ref. n.r.e.
Almost squarely in point on the facts with this case is Wilson v. Barnes, Texas Civ. App., 224 S.W. 2d 892, in which this court refused writ of error thereby making the decision and opinion as authoritative as our own. In that case the defendant’s ambulance, traveling in its own lane of traffic, struck the plaintiff’s automobile which was traveling in the opposite direction and in the wrong lane of traffic. Discovered peril issues were submitted to the jury, were answered favorably to the plaintiff and were attacked on appeal as having no support in the evidence. The evidence reflected, as does the evidence in the instant case, that the defendant’s employee applied his brakes some distance before reaching the point of collision and- remained in his own traffic lane. The Court of Civil Appeals nevertheless *238pointed to the width of the traffic lane and a graveled road shoulder as affording the defendant space for pulling to the right to avoid the collision, and said: “The jury could have concluded from such testimony alone that by a reasonable effort to guide the ambulance to the right after he discovered the perilous position of the Barnes car * * * he could have avoided striking ■the Ford automobile. Under the facts in this case we are of the opinion that the evidence raised the issue of discovered peril and that the findings were not against the preponderance of the evidence thereon.” 224 S.W. 2d 894. The only factual difference between Wilson v. Barnes and the instant case is that in this case there was a flat tire on the plaintiff’s automobile. That difference in the facts can afford no distinction in law. The future course a motorist traveling on the wrong side of a street or road will take — whether straight ahead, to the left or back to his own right side — is just as unpredictable when there is no flat tire on his car as when there is. The majority avoid having to come to grips with a clearly conflicting decision by simply failing to take cognizance of it.
The holding of the majority seems to rest upon the proposition that since the driver of the truck could not be certain just what course Proctor’s car would take, a jury will not be permitted to say, from common experience or otherwise, what steps a reasonably prudent person in the driver’s situation would have taken to avoid the collision; that since the driver applied his brakes, we will not permit a jury to say that a reasonable prudent person would also have driven his truck to his right off of the pavement and onto 'the graveled shoulder of the roadway. I submit that the holding is new to the doctrine of discovered peril, has no precedent in any of the long list of cases cited by the majority and runs counter to the cases hereinabove cited. It cannot be harmonized, for instance, with what was said in Trochta v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co., 218 S.W. 1038, 1039 by the Commission of Appeals:
“To relieve defendant of liability on the ground that the engineer did what he thought proper in the emergency to avoid the injury would in effect, abolish the doctrine of discovered peril, except in cases of willful injury. The test of liability is not whether the engineer after discovering the peril of deceased acted in good faith in an effort to avoid the injury, but whether he acted as a man of ordinary prudence would have acted under the circumstances. This was a question to be determined by the jury from the evidence.”
*239Not a single one of the cases cited by the majority is apposite. A number are cited only for the purpose of showing development of the discovered peril doctrine in Texas. They, of course, have no precedential value in this case. A number are cited for the proposition that the last clear chance doctrine only applies when the last chance is a clear one. All in that group simply hold that for recovery to rest on the doctrine of discovered peril, discovery must have occurred when there was yet time to avoid injury. Neither are they controlling here. Inasmuch as Barron had time after discovering Proctor’s peril to apply his brakes- and skid his truck some 222 feet before reaching the point of collision, he obviously also had time in which to drive his truck onto the shoulder of the road. Moreover, there is evidence in the record that at all material points the road shoulder was 8 to 9 feet wide and was graveled and hard, thus offering ample room and a safe area for the driving of the truck onto the shoulder with safety to the driver and the truck.
There is, of course, a certain amount of speculation in any finding that a particular act or omission in a given fact situation was negligent and a proximate cause of a collision. The need for speculation here as a basis for recovery is no greather than in the usual fact situation surrounding an automobile collision. The evidence and the reasonable inferences furnish us this fact situation: Barron, the truck driver, saw Proctor’s tire blow out and his car pull into the wrong traffic lane directly in the pathway of ■ his truck; Proctor would not likely get his car back into his-own traffic lane in time to avoid a collision; unless he, Barron, acted to avoid it, a collision would occur; he could continue to drive straight ahead, using no available means to avoid the collision, or he could apply his brakes and hold to a straight-ahead course, as he did, thus using only one available means of avoiding it, or he could apply his brakes and drive onto the right shoulder of the road, thus giving the troubled Proctor a clear roadway and using two available means of avoiding the collision. Only by following the latter course could he discharge his legal duty of using all of the means at his command to avoid the collision. Are we prepared to say that a jury could not find that a reasonably prudent person exercising ordinary care in the use of all the means at his command to avoid the collision would have used both available means of avoiding the collision? That is precisely what the majority have held.
In spite of what appears to me to be an erroneous holding on the discovered peril phase of the case, the majority have affirmed the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals. I concur *240in the judgment entered, but only because of the trial court’s failure to submit the discovered peril issues.
Opinion delivered July 13, 1960.