Court Opinion

ID: 9832780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:11:45.467075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:52.449439
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
In appellant’s motion for rehearing the Court is criticised for its failure to make a full and understandable statement of the nature of the case. After reading the original opinion in connection with the criticism, we have reached the conclusion that the statement made in the opinion should have been fuller and more complete. However, the rather meager statement given in the original opinion was copied substantially from the statement of the nature of the case appellant furnished this Court in its brief.
In compliance with t'he criticism of appellant in this respect, we make the statement below as an addendum to the statement given on page one of the original opinion, and for that purpose copy literally from appellant’s brief the following: “Mr. Brock operated a hog farm, and after his death Mrs. Brock continued in that business. They had some kind of a contract with DeGeorge’s restaurant, located on Commerce Street in downtown Dallas, whereby they picked up its wet garbage in cans, leaving the cans they had carried away on the previous trip. Shortly after 7:00 A.M. on June 20, 1946, Mrs. Brock’s employees stopped the garbage truck on Commerce Street -a short distance from De-George’s restaurant for the purpose of securing garbage, and leaving the empty cans they had. In preparation for this work, they opened a sidewalk elevator shaft. The covering for the elevator shaft, when closed, formed a part of the sidewalk. This covering was in two (2) parts, each hinged and they could be raised into upright positions across the sidewalk. There were iron bars, or cross' bars, that could be fastened to the top of each part of the covering in the upright position, and would also serve as guards on the open ends of the shaft. After this had been opened Mrs. Brock’s employees climbed down it to get the cross bars. Almost immediately Mrs. Lona Livingston fell down the shaft, and sustained personal injuries. Nothing had been eithér loaded onto the truck or unloaded off of-it at the time Mrs. Livingston fell.”
*377In paragraph four of appellant’s motion for rehearing the contention is made that the Court erred in holding that notice to appellee’s employees of the injury sustained by Mrs. Livingston did not constitute notice to Mrs. Brock herself. We did not explicitly make any such holding. The provision of the policy under review is that notice be given of such an injury “as soon as practicable.” Our opinion states fully the facts with reference to notice, the character of the injury, etc., and under all the circumstances we held that giving notice as soon as Mrs. Brock had actual notice of the injury complied with the provisions of the policy. The question of the effect of constructive notice to Mrs. Brock through her employees did not enter our consideration as we did not think that rigid rule applicable under the rather loose liberal provision of the policy.
Wc do not think either of appellant’s assignments for rehearing is well taken; therefore its motion is overruled.