Court Opinion

ID: 9833750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:59:40.03847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.428273
License: Public Domain

On Motion for'Rehearing.
Appellee Veit presents a motion for rehearing. The appellee the Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company likewise presents a motion for rehearing, and also a motion to correct our findings of fact. The motions referred to are lengthy and supported by able and exhaustive arguments by the counsel of the several parties, .but in the interest of brevity we feel that we must for the most part dispose of them in a general way. So doing, we conclude that the motion to correct our findings of fact must be overruled. A re-examination of the case in the light of the motions for rehearing has indeed but confirmed us in the correctness of our original findings, as will, we think, hereinafter more particularly appear.
With reference to the motion for rehearing by the appellee Veit, we will observe that we are unable to see from the record any such interest in him in the controversy between the Telephone Company and the Light Company as will authorize consideration of his complaint of our judgment. It is insisted :
That our judgment is prejudicial to his rights “in that an erroneous judgment has been rendered which necessarily interferes with and operates to delay the collection of the plaintiff’s .judgment as rendered in the trial court, and if not corrected by your honorable body may cause such an intolerable delay in the appellate tribunal, in view of the heavily crowded condition of their dockets, as to amount to an almost practical denial of justice to this appellee.”
But this, as we can see, constitutes no valid reason. If our judgment is erroneous for other reasons, it should, of course, be! set aside. But, if-correct, it will not do to say that the Light Company shall be denied the right accorded to it by our judgment merely because appellee thereby may be delayed. Nor do we see how the judgment in favor of the Light Company over against the Telephone Company impedes the appellee Vdit. By our action the' judgment in appellee Veit’s favor as rendered in the trial court was in all things affirmed, and there is no such interdependent relation between the cause of action alleged and maintained by him against the Light Company and that urged by the Light Company against the Telephone Company as prevents their severance and the entry here! of a proper decree upon these several rights. If, as suggested in argument, a reason exists why the judgment in favor of the Light Company will -be prejudicial to the judgment in favor of appellee Veit, such reason lies entirely out.side the record, and cannot therefore be properly considered by us. We! are accordingly of the opinion that appellee Veit shows no interest or concern that we can recognize in the decree in' favor of the Light Company against the Telephone Company. However, this conclusion is perhaps of no practical importance in view of the fact that the motion for rehearing on the part of the appellee Telephone Company presents at great length substantially every objection, as it seems to us, arising upon the face of the record that is properly presented in appellee Veit’s motion for rehearing. We will therefore! address ourselves with more! particularity to the objections urged by the appellee Telephone Company.
In substance, the principal contention, presented in various forms and with much force, is that we were in e!rror in concluding that the negligence of the Light Company was not active, as contradistinguished from passive, and that hence the Light Company, being an active participant at least in the negligences which caused the plaintiff Veit’s injuries, was not, under the authorities cited, entitled to the recovery we awarded in its favor against the! Telephone Company. But a careful re-examination of the record has confirmed us in our original conclusions on this subject. It is true that the jury, in answe!r to one of the special issues, found that the Telephone Company was not negligent in failing to request the Light Company to shut off its power, but this finding is not thought to present an insuperable objection to our conclusions and judgment as originally announced. Assuming that the Telephone Company was without negligence in this particular, there yet remains the undisputed proof that the Telephone Company, through its directing agent, called from big home in a distant city one of its employés, Veit, who was unacquainted with conditions relating to the work he was called upon to do, and, having so called him, sent him up iuto and among conditions known to be dangerous, and which resulted in his injuries, without warning him of the conditions or danger. If this does not manifest active negligence on the part of the Telephone Company, we are wholly at fault in our judgment.
That the dangerous conditions were known to the Telephone Company must be imputed to it, not only because, as a matter of law, it was its duty to learn and to know of them, but also as a necessary conclusion from the undisputed evidence of the long-continued existence of the very dangers developed on the! trial. To so call and to so direct appellee to work in, about, and among such dangerous conditions without warning amounts, as we think, .to affirmative, active wrong, as contradistinguished from the passive negligence of the Light Company in permitting the dangerous conditions to continue.
Gre!at stress is laid upon the fact that in answer to special issues the jury found that *993the Light Company was guilty of negligence in maintaining its high-voltage wire on the crossbeam, as it did, and also in maintaining its high-voltage wire in such close proximity to the pole and iron step of the Telephone Company, and that these several acts of negligence were each proximate causes of the plaintiff Veit’s injuries. From this it is argued it conclusively appears that the Light Company was an active participant in the wrongs of which the plaintiff complains; in other words, that under such findings the Light Company was, and is, necessarily a joint tort-feasor with the Telephone Company, and therefore not entitled to indemnification.
It is true that as against the Light Company we sustained the several findings referred to in favor of the plaintiff, and we entertain no doubt as to the correctness of our conclusions in these respects. But this hy no means is decisive of the rights of the Light Company as against the Telephone Company.
In every case of the kind it must be presupposed that as to the third party injured both defendants have been guilty of actionable negligence. There can be no such thing as a right of indemnification in cases of joint tort unless it be made to first appear that the defendant or tort-feasor seeking the indemnity has been held liable to some third person for some negligent act or omission proximately causing an injury. In all such eases, and in this case, the vital questions are: Was the party seeking indemnification guilty and held liable because of some mere omission to perform a duty, and was the negligence of the wrongdoer from which indem-. nity is sought affirmative and active as contradistinguished from mere omissive or passive negligence?
On these issues in this case there is no finding of the jury, nor did either the Light Company or the Telephone Company request the determination of any such issue; both alike thus, at least apparently, acquiescing in the failure of the court to so submit. Indeed, in the facts governing the questions referred to there was and is no issue or controversy necessary for a jury’s determination. It became the duty of the trial court to declare the law arising from the undisputed facts, and, that court not having done so, for this court, as we did, to so declare. It is insisted, however, at great length and with much vigor, that the essential facts upon which we predicated our judgment over against the Telephone Company are not undisputed. But, as stated, after again carefully considering the evidence, we feel that we must adhere to our original conclusions, both as to law and fact. In deference, however, to the very earnest contentions of counsel in behalf of the Telephone Company, we will refer to the evidence with more particularity than has heretofore been done. Among other things, Henry Ward testified in behalf of the Light Company as follows:
“My name is.Henry Ward; I live in Weath-erford ; have lived here about all my life, and I am 59 years old; have lived here about 59 years. I work for different men. I am working for the Water, Light & Power Company now. If my recollection serves me right, I commenced working for them in the spring of 18S8, and have worked for them virtually ever since. I know when the poles of the'Light Company were first set around the square here and over on the north side. I have done approximately a little of everything that was done about the Light Company place. I dug holes and helped raise the poles. I do not exactly remember when the telephone poles were set around the square here, relative to the time the Water and Light Company’s poles ' were set. The telephone poles were set after the light poles.” •
The lengthy cross-examination of this witness in behalf of the Telephone Company failed to weaken the explicit statement of the witness on examination in chief that the telephone poles were set after the light poles. On the contrary, force to this statement was, if anything, added to it on cross-examination. He then said, among other things:
“I know it [the telephone pole which Yeit ascended at the time of his injury] was not in my way when I was putting poles up; was not set at that time. If the telephone poles had been there, I could not have raised my poles. They were raised, every one, over my shoulder, them poles, and I could not have raised them, Even with our pole 10 or 12.feet shorter, Í could not have raised it if that pole had been there.”
On re-examination the witness further testified: *
“I did not look after the setting of the poles for the Light Company. I helped set them; helped do .the work. * * * I know by reason of setting the poles which line of poles was put up first.”
The witness was thereupon recrossed in behalf of the Telephone Company, and he then said:
“I don’t say I think the light poles were put up first. I know they were put up first. If the telephone poles had been there, I would have seen them when I put up the light poles.”
In appellant’s brief on the original submission the substance of the testimony of the above witness as above quoted is set out, and the following statement, referring thereto made, viz.:
“This testimony stands in the record of this case without contradiction.”
In the answering brief of the Telephone Company no denial of this statement is made which, under rule 41 (142 S. W xiv), authorizes us to accept the statement as true. Moreover, the record fails to disclose that the Telephone Company offered the testimony of the person or persons who placed its poles so as to show that they had been erected prior to the time the poles of the Light Company had been put up. Nor is there any explanation of why such witness or witnesses were not offered that has been called to our attention. All that on the motion for rehearing even the ingenuity and research of counsel has been able to assemble-*994are some circumstances of an inconclusive nature, such as that the Telephone Company acquired a franchise and paid .taxes prior to the organization of the Light Company. But these circumstances .are not followed by any evidence which tends to show that the Telephone Company installed its poles around the square in. Weatherford and paid taxes upon its property after such organization and equipment before the erection of the light poles.
We do not think the circumstances referred to amount to any contradiction of the testimony of the witness Ward, and we therefore reiterate and find as a fact that the Telephone Company erected the pole upon which Veit was hurt after the Light Company had erected its pole adjacent thereto and after the Light Company had already fixed in place on its crossbeam its high-voltage wires, as shown in the testimony.
 In what respect, therefore, can it be properly said that the negligence of the Light Company was active rather than passive? It cannot be reasonably said that as between the Light and Telephone Companies the Light Company was guilty of negligence in originally placing its high-voltage wire on the inner portion of the crossbeam, instead of upon the outer portion. The duty of the Light Company in this particular was manifestly only due to its own employes, and while it may be properly said that later, upon the erection by'the Telephone Company of its pole in close proximity, a duty arose on the part of the Light Company to remove its high-voltage wire to the outer end of its crossbeam, and that in failing to so do, and in maintaining the high-voltage wire as originally fixed, it was guilty of negligence, yet it seems clear to us that the failure of the Light Company in these respects amounts to mere omissions. In these particulars there was no affirmative act. They were mere failures to act, and therefore the negligence in these particulars was merely passive.
It is further insisted that the Light Company was guilty of active negligence in placing and in maintaining its high-voltage wire on the bracket by it attached to the telephone pole. But the evidence relating to this subject is to the effect that the telephone pole was erected within four or five feet of the light pole upon which the high-voltage wire was fixed; that the telephone pole was in such close proximity to this high-voltage wire after its erection as that the wire, if not in actual contact with the telephone pole, was so nearly so as that it became reasonably necessary, in order to protect the telephone pole, to fix the bracket, and thereon secure the high-voltage wire, as was done. To illustrate: James Lewis Ferguson testified, among other things, that fon five years covering the periods involved in the controversy herein he was wire chief of the Telephone Company in Weatherford, and that it. was his duty to see that the plant was kept in working condition; that he was familiar with the construction of the lines and poles of the Telephone Company prior to February 8, 1915, in Weatherford; that prior to that time the City of Weatherford Water, Light & Ice Company had electric light wires attached to the telephone pole of the Telephone Company in Weatherford. He said:
“I have been knowing for a long time of this contact over here at the place of the accident; I don’t know when was the first time I knew of it, but I will say after I began work here the last time, two or three years. Of my own knowledge it had been over there two or three years before the accident. One time there was a contact made by the Light Company on the poles of the Telephone Company at my suggestion and with my consent. That was at the Arlington Hotel. They had run a wire over in a dangerous condition, and the electric current came down the poles, being wet, and Carroll said he could not go down right then, and the only way they could clear it was to put a bracket on, and I gave him at that time a temporary permit to do that, that when it did clear up he would remove it, and he put it on there. I suppose the necessity for this contact in question at the time of the accident was that it was burning the pole in two, but I don’t know; it was for the purpose of keeping the wire off the pole. If it hadn’t been for that contact the electric wire would have come against the pole of the Telephone Company. That would not hurt it in dry weather. In wet weather it would have been liable to have burned the pole. The bracket was an advantage to the telephone pole. It prevented injury by contact with the wire.”
It is insisted that in so fixing the wire on the bracket the Light Company was guilty of active negligence, in that by so doing it brought the wire more nearly to the iron step upon which it was necessary for the plaintiff Veit to step in ascending and descending the pole, the contention being that, in the absence of the bracket, the wire would have “sagged” and been lower down, but, as stated, the evidence is undisputed to the effect that the telephone pole was erected within some four or five feet of the light pole, and in the very nature of things within that distance the light wire could and would have sagged but little, if any. No witness testified that the wire would have sagged in the absence of the bracket and been lower. This is but a mere surmise. It is quite as probable under the evidence that by means of the bracket the wire was made to extend farther from the iron step instead of closer thereto. Moreover, while the evidence upon the trial and the finding of the jury was to the effect that at the time of plaintiff Veit’s injuries the wire attached to the bracket was uninsulated, there is no evidence to show that it was without insulation at the particular time the wire was attached to the bracket. In other words, at the time of the performance of this act nothing, as we view the evidence, tends to show that thereby the Light Company was guilty of any active negligence.
It may be admitted that thereafter it was its duty towards employSs of the Telephone Company called to ascend the tele*995phone pole to inspect'and to see that the wire was properly insulated, but a failure in this .respect would be an act of omission, not of commission, and therefore negligence . passive in its nature rather than active.
Possibly we should notice the authorities so industriously gathered and cited in support of the motion, but they are so numerous, and in instances so actually or apparently conflicting as that it seems almost profitless to undertake to discuss them, and point out distinguishing features, give reasons for approving some of the decisions and disapproving others, etc. At best, eách case is dependent upon its own particular circumstances. The fundamental rule to be applied, as it seems to us, is plain and easy of ascertainment. It is not a difference in degree, of the comparative negligence of the parties, but a difference in the character of the wrongs causing injury to some third party, which distinguish the respective lights and liabilities of tort-feasors as among, themselves, and what we have said and the authorities cited in our original opinion we think sufficiently show a proper application of the rule, the distinguishing feature, to the facts of this case.
The motions of appellees are accordingly overruled without further discussion.