Court Opinion

ID: 9830147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:55:08.01152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:14.070412
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
ELY, O. J.
A large portion of appellant’s motion is devoted to a discussion as to whether the statute applies to passenger as well as freight cars, and it may be admitted that it does, and the expression which may be construed otherwise is stricken from our former ■opinion.
In this case the liability of appellee depends first upon the establishing of the fact that the Pullman car was defective, or upon the further fact that appellee had been guilty of negligence in leaving the bar out of the slot. The defects as alleged by appellant consisted in the “handhold or grabiron on said Pullman car” being “old, bent, and defective,” and the “latch or catch provided on said car to hold the end of said hand rail, handhold, or grabiron in place was old, worn, and defective.” The testimony utterly failed to sustain that allegation, for the jury found that the bar of iron was not defective, and therefore there was nothing to prevent the “hand rail, handhold, or grabiron” from fitting in the socket. The evidence showed that it was in perfect condition, and it follows that appellee could not have been negligent, unless it had been negligent in other respects! It also follows that, if the “handhold, hand rail, or grabiron” was not defective, as alleged, the case cannot be brought within the safety appliance act, even though the Legislature had prominently in view, when enacting the safety appliance law, a guard rail on a Pullman car used for keeping the door shut. There was an utter failure of the testimony to establish any defect alleged. The elementary principle that allegation must be answered by proof applies in this case as in any other. The other allegation of negligence was that the bar of iron was not properly placed in the slot or socket made for it. The evidence failed to show that appellee had any connection with such negligence, and the jury so found.
In the motion for new trial it is not claimed that there had been any violation of the safety appliance act, and there is not one word in the brief about any safety appliance. The first assignment of error complains of uncertainty in the answers of the jury to the issues submitted by the court. The second assignment is to the effect that, if the jury found that appellant opened the vestibule door, it is contrary to the evidence; and the third and last assignment is directed at a refusal of the court to give a special charge requested by appellant. The case was tried in the lower court on the basis of negligence in a failure to- place the guard rail in the slot or socket.
If, as so vigorously contended in the motion for rehearing, the guard rail for the door was a handhold within the contemplation of state and federal law, the evidence utterly fails to sustain the allegations as to the defective condition of the guard rail, but, on the other hand, shows it to have been in perfect condition. It was not alleged that a failure to place the bar in the slot or socket rendered it defective under the terms of any law. Appellant did not think that leaving a door open or a rail out of a slot rendered an appliance defective, for he pleaded the defects and then pleaded negligence in the failure to place the guard rail in the slot or socket. If it be admitted that the bar at the door of the Pullman car was a handhold fully within the purview of the safety- appliance act, and that it was defective because it was *415not placed in the slot, still the evidence fails to show that appellee was responsible for the condition of the guard rail at the time of the accident.
[3] We have considered this ease from the standpoint of the liability of appellee for the defective condition of the Pullman and the negligence of Pullman employés, as that proposition seems well established. Dwinelle v. Railway, 120 N. Y. 117, 24 N. E. 319, 8 L. R. A. 224, 17 Am. St. Rep. 611; Railway v. Roy, 102 U. S. 451, 26 L. Ed. 141; Blake v. Railway, 38 Tex. Civ. App. 337, 85 S. W. 430; Pullman Co. v. Norton, 91 S. W. 841. The two companies were, if liable at all, jointly liable.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.