Court Opinion

ID: 9817370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 04:18:48.988938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:49.445219
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing.
Upon consideration of defendant in error’s motion for a rehearing we are inclined to adhere to the opinion formerly prepared by this division of the commission, and in adhering to the former opinion we rely on the authority of Frederick Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co. v. Clay, 50 Okla. 123, 150 Pac. 451. See, also, Shawnee Gas & Electric Co. v. Motesenbocker, 41 Okla. 454, 138 Pac. 790.
It is true, as urged by counsel for plaintiff in their brief on the motion, that their failure to prove the non-appointment of an administrator was a failure to prove one of the allegations of the petition which went only to plaintiff’s capacity to sue, and not to the substantive right to recover, and it is likewise true that a plaintiff’s incapacity to sue must be taken advantage of by the defendant at the first opportunity to do so if he intends to rely on that fact as a defense, or such defense will be considered as having been waived, because it is purely a technical one, and not necessarily one going to the merits of the action. Rev. Laws 1910, sec. 4742; Howell v. Iola Portland Cement Co., 86 Kan. 450, 121 Pac. 346. If in a statutory action to recover damages for a death caused by the negligence or the wrongful act of another it is not made to appear on the face of the petition that the plaintiff is one who has the statutory capacity to sue, such defect must be taken advantage of by demurrer; but if, as in the .instant case, facts are alleged which show that the plaintiff *169has the capacity to sue, then her incapacity, if any, must be taken advantage of by answer, or it, being a purely technical defense, will be considered as having been waived, and a failure to prove such allegation will not be fatal to plaintiff’s case. If the incapacity of the plaintiff to sue is taken advantage of by answer, the facts tending to establish her capacity, being proper and necessary allegations, must be proved, and a failure to prove such facts would be a failure to prove an essential allegation of the petition, and her case would fail for want of sufficient proof. Frederick Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co. v. Clay, supra, and cases therein cited.
In the instant case the plaintiff in her first cause of action positively alleged the non-appointment of an administrator of the estate of her deceased husband, thereby qualifying herself to bring the action. Defendant by its answer denied that fact, thereby raising an issue which required the affirmative to be established by proof. On the trial of the case the plaintiff failed to prove that there had not been an administrator appointed, and at the close of the trial defendant moved for an instructed verdict, which motion was overruled. This was error. Frederick Cotton Oil & Mfg. Co. v. Clay, supra.
Counsel for defendant in error further contend that their petition contained a second cause of action, fully set out, which did not contain an allegation of the nonappointment of an administrator, and that the plaintiff in error, hot having demurred to that cause on that ground, had waived the defect in the pleading. The contention is correct. Plaintiff’s second cause of action, her capacity to sue not having been shown, was defective on its face, but the defect being one which related only to the plaintiff’s *170capacity to sue, and not to the real merits of her cause of action, defendant’s failure to demur waived that defect. Motesenbocker v. Shawnee Gas & Electric Co., 49 Okla. 304, 152 Pac. 82.
The defect in plaintiff’s second cause of action having been waived by the defendant, another question for our consideration would have been presented had the allegations of negligence or wrongdoing therein set forth been sustained by the evidence or established by the verdict.
The plaintiff’s second cause of action contained only two allegations of negligence or wrongdoing which, if true, would sustain her right to recover in this action:
First. It was alleged that R. P. Howard was the conductor of the train which caused the death of plaintiff’s husband, and that he negligently and carelessly started the train without having given plaintiff’s husband, who had entered one of the cars to assist plaintiff, time to leave.
Second. It was alleged that in attempting to leave the train after it had started to move plaintiff’s husband was “pushed and shoved” from the moving train by George Young, one of defendant company’s brakemen, thereby causing him to be thrown under the wheels of the moving train and killed.
Both Howard and Young were joined with the railroad company as defendants. Upon the cause being submitted to the jury a verdict was returned for Young and against the plaintiff, thereby finding that Young was not guilty of “pushing” or “shoving” plaintiff’s husband off the moving train, and the effect of such verdict was equivalent to a finding for the railroad company on that issue of the case, the company only being liable, if at all, *171under the rule of respondeat superior. C., R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Austin, 43 Okla. 698, 144 Pac. 1069; St. L. & S. F. R. Co. v. Williams, 55 Okla. 682, 155 Pac. 249; Doremus v. Root, 23 Wash. 710, 63 Pac. 572, 56 L. R. A. 649.
At the close of plaintiff’s case the defendant Howard demurred to the evidence, and the demurrer was sustained, thereby taking from the consideration • of the jury the issue raised by the second cause of action as to Howard’s negligence in causing the train to be started before the deceased had time to alight therefrom, and the jury’s verdict could not therefore have been based on that allegation.
Both causes of action seem to have been submitted to the jury, but the first cause failed, as we have seen, by reason of the failure of the plaintiff to sustain her allegation that no administrator of her husband’s estate had been appointed. The issue' of Howard’s negligence, as set forth in the second cause of action, was taken from the jury by the action of the court in sustaining Howard’s demurrer to the evidence, and the issue of Young’s wrongful act was submitted to the jury, and a verdict returned adverse to the plaintiff as to that allegation.
Not being able to find from a consideration of defendant in error’s motion for a rehearing and the brief submitted in support thereof that anything in the record or in the law of the case was overlooked in the preparation of the first opinion of the court that would justify that opinion being overruled, we recommend that the motion for a rehearing be denied.
By the Court: It is so ordered.