Court Opinion

ID: 9827883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:54:21.446773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:38.251243
License: Public Domain

On Motion of Appellees for a Rehearing.
 Appellees insisted when the record was first before us for consideration that the judgment should be affirmed without respect to whether the' trial court erred in the rulings appellants complained of or not, because, appellees said, the testimony heard at the trial did not warrant a finding that they were guilty of negligence as charged against them, and therefore, they said, it would not have been error had the trial court peremptorily instructed the jury to return a verdict in their favor. The insistence is renewed in the motion, and a majority of the members of the court have concluded,' after further consideration of the testimony in the record, that it should be sustained. The explanation offered by appellees of the delay at Gainesville, to wit, that the station was a divisional terminal where it was necessary to consume quite a little time in inspecting and switching the 40 cars constituting the train the cattle were in, was a reasonable one, and, notwithstanding appellants-’ agent (the witness Cush-enberry) accompanied the shipment, they offered no testimony tending to show that any part of the .delay there was not necessary. And so as to delay at Emporia. With reference to that the witness Diekensheets testified, and was not contradicted, that the delay of 12 to 14 hours there was necessary in order to properly comply with the federal statute (section 8651, U. S. Comp. Stats.) forbidding a common carrier of cattle and other live stock from confining same in cars for a longer period than 36 hours-without unloading them into pens “for rest, water, and feeding, for a period of at least five consecutive hours.” As, in the view now taken of the record by the majority, the judgment should not be reversed for any of the reasons urged by appellants and referred to in the opinion disposing of the appeal, the motion will be granted, and the judgment heretofore rendered by this court will be set aside, and the judgment of the court below instead of being reversed will be affirmed.