Court Opinion

ID: 9829988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:47:40.648535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:10.680341
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee asserts in a motion and argument for rehearing, of 29 pages, that we erred in reversing the pase on the ground indicated in the main opinion, principally upon the contention that Heath actually or impliedly should have anticipated the death of Barnes.
[8] Heath, the freight conductor, a witness for plaintiff, testified that he first noticed the absence of Barnes from the freight caboose when they were moving out of Higgins. This record does not place Heath inside the caboose until that time, and appel-*889lee says that Heath, by the electric headlight of the passenger train, after it came in, could have looked about a mile down the track where Barnes was last seen, and could have seen him on the track caught in the position indicated by Barnes’ note. If Barnes was in the position, standing between the caboose and the main track, for the purpose of guarding the train, when last seen by Heath, as testified by him, why didn’t the latter have a right to expect that the former was at some place upon the train when they left Higgins? And what circumstance is there in this record which could have suggested to Heath that Barnes was in danger? The uncontradicted testimony is that signals were given by the engineer for the purpose of notifying trainmen when the freight train was moved west from the water crane at Higgins, also out of Higgins. Barnes, in his purported note, says' he was “jerked off way car”; at least was on the train, or had tried to get on. We have an argument of contradictory inferences, accompanying this motion, rather hard to follow. If, as appellee argues, Barnes was “drinking and throwing up and got out at the switch at Higgins, or sat on the steps of the way car in a stupor, and could not perform his duty,” it is rather difficult to place Barnes within a consistent position of recovery in the manner in which the cause is alleged. It is almost a premise, if not entirely so, of contributory negligence, and in that event discovered peril only would apply.
They also argue that there were several minutes after Barnes had been jerked from the train in which he might have been discovered, during the interim between that time and the time the train left Higgins. There is not the slightest circumstance in this record that any employs of the freight train knew, or was upon inquiry, of any danger to Barnes from the time the freight train came in until it departed. We do not understand appellee to plead or impute to the railway company any drunken condition of Barnes — an emergency guardianship — creating the duty to the railway company, the violation of which by the train crew is a proximate cause producing the death of Barnes. He was jerked when “working on the rear of said train”; and plaintiff evidently pleaded that part of the case in conformity with the testimony of his witness Heath. The testimony was that this was about a 63 car train, with an engine and caboose; that when Burke, the engineer, moved the train from the water crane to the crossing on the west, it was moved usually and easily. The only contradiction as to the manner in which the train was moved was the purported note of Barnes that he was “jerked off way car.” 1-Iis position when “jerked,” and the character of the “jerk”’ of course, is not stated. It may have been a troublesome situation to a jury to have resolved why a sober, experienced brakeman was jerked off a way car unless he was drunk; but, in conformity with the verdict and the way the issues were joined, we differ with appellee that they may have decided that he was drunk or in a stupor and not in the line of his duty. We cannot impute to the jury a belief that Barnes was as drunk and in the position as asserted by appellee. We impute to the jury some consistency of purpose and integrity of action, and conclude that under the court’s charge, upon contributory negligence as framed they would have found that Barnes was guilty of contributory negligence. And we think there should be some consistency of argument to support a jury’s verdict; at least it should not assert a premise to obtain a conclusion, when the premise of itself would destroy the recovery assuming that the verdict would have followed the court’s charge. Appellant and appellees clashed on the drunken condition of Barnes, and plaintiff introduced Heath to show what Barnes was doing when last seen — “working at the rear of the train,” as pleaded, not so drunk that he could not attend to bis duties — and proved it from his standpoint.
[9] Appellee’s further argument is that Heath, as a reasonably prudent man, should in law have anticipated the actual injury, or some like injury, to Barnes; that a concurring negligent cause with other negligent causes, producing the injury, is overlooked by us. Of course we recognize the doctrine that a concurring cause with other agencies producing the condition, or a like result if it were sufficient as one of the proximate causes of the result, or would have contributed to a similar result, necessarily should be considered legally as an element of liability. However, it must not be a remote proximate cause, though it may, in a sense, enter into the stream of results.
“Where several causes concur to produce certain results, any of them may be termed ‘proximate,’ provided it appears to have heen am efficient came.” La Batt on Master and Servant, vol. 4, § 1580.
There still exists the necessity of showing a proximate connection between the wrong and the injury.
[10] We realize that the difficulty of the rule is more in its application than in its formulation; and, of course, “an appellate court should not undertake to settle proximate cause in any case where it involves the weighing of conflicting evidence, the balancing of probabilities and the drawing of inferences.” La Batt, vol. 4, § 1572.
[11] However, “when there is no reason to expect it [the injury or a like result], and no knowledge in the person doing the wrongful act that such a state of things exists as to render the damage probable, if injury results to a third person, it is generally considered that the wrongful act is not the proximate cause of the injury. * * *" *890Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Reed, 88 Tex. 439, 31 S. W. 1058.
“ * * * The question of probable cause ought to depend upon the further question whether a reasonably prudent man, in view of all the facts, would have anticipated the result, not necessarily the precise actual injury, but some like injury, produced by similar intervening agencies.” Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Bigham, 90 Tex. 227, 38 S. W. 164.
In the Bigham Case, supra, there was a defective fastening to a stock pen gate, at which the owner of cattle was standing when his cattle, situated in the pens, ran over the gate and injured him. The negligence of the railway operatives upon a passing engine caused the cattle to scare and run over the gate. The Supreme Court further said in that cause:
“In our opinion, nothing short of prophetic ken could have anticipated the happening of the combination of events which resulted in the injury to the person of the plaintiff.”
[12] The rule that conductors are expected to see that the trainmen are upon the train does not do away with the right of conductors to rely upon theopresumption that trainmen will get upon the train and be at their ordinary post of duty; trainmen, we take it, also owe a duty. If trainmen are not upon the train, the conductor may have violated a duty owing to the company regulating the train service. We do not understand appellee to contend that Heath owed a duty to Barnes to see that the latter was on the train in the sense that Barnes had a reciprocal demand, flowing from such a rule, to expect of Heath to see that he (Barnes) was upon said train, and that the violation of which was pleaded and proved as a proximate cause of the death of Barnes. The violation of the rule of duty in the Bigham Case, which the railroad owed to the owner in regard to his cattle, made the injury to the cattle a proximate result; but Justice Gaines said it would have taken “prophetic ken” to have anticipated the injury to the owner standing at the gate, on account of negligently running the cattle over the gates. Of course we admit the cases are not entirely analogous; but, without attempting to discriminate, appellee would have us to require Heath to have anticipated Barnes’ death as a probable result, or some like . danger or situation, with reference to this rule: Go to the extent that Heath owed Barnes the duty to see that he was on the train — how could he have anticipated danger or death to Barnes as a violation of the rule? We think, to the extent at least that it would have required “prophetic ken” for Heath to have done so, this comes within the Bigham Case.
Our opinion, by mistake or typographical error, sustained the twenty-second assignment of error, when it was the twenty-first assignment intended to be sustained, which was substantially sufficient. Motion overruled.