Allred v. Kima Fertilizer, Inc.

399 S.W.2d 860, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2867
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 21, 1966
DocketNo. 7576
StatusPublished

This text of 399 S.W.2d 860 (Allred v. Kima Fertilizer, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allred v. Kima Fertilizer, Inc., 399 S.W.2d 860, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2867 (Tex. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

CHAPMAN, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment against Ralph M. Allred summarily rendered for Kima Fertilizer, Inc., upon its motion, pleadings and an affidavit filed by its 26-year old manager, Tommy Womack.

The parties will be referred to as they were in the court below.

In their pleadings the parties have raised that phase of assumed risk which falls in the category known as the “no duty” cases, applicable to occupier-invitee situations. The other Texas concept of assumed risk, volenti, was not pleaded. The latter concept being an affirmative defense1 and not raised by the pleadings of defendant below, we believe it is unnecessary for us to discuss it.

This being a summary judgment case, the first rules we must apply are (1) that the court hearing the motion must not weigh the evidence or determine the credibility of affiants and deponents; and (2) he must accept as true all evidence of the party opposing the motion which tends to support such party’s contention, and give him the benefit of every reasonable inference which properly can be drawn in favor of his position. Gulbenkian v. Penn, 151 [861]*861Tex. 412, 252 S.W.2d 929. These rules must be kept in mind as we consider the summary judgment evidence upon which the court summarily rendered its judgment.

At about 9:30 a. m., April 4, 1964, the plaintiff drove his station wagon up next to defendant’s white pickup truck parked just south of the door of a small, white building used as an office by defendant in Wildorado, Texas. It was a cold, windy, somewhat dusty spring morning. He was driving west and defendant’s pickup truck was facing the same direction. His deposition testimony shows that he drove up to the south of the truck within about three feet of it with the back end of his station wagon even with the window and cab of defendant’s pickup truck. He got out “in a hurry,” walked around the back of his machine because that was the nearest to the cab of the pickup in which Tommy Womack was sitting. He also stated in the deposition that the back of his station wagon was even with the glass in the cab of the pickup. As he approached the cab Tommy rolled the glass to the door down and told him he was “going right up here and weigh this pickup and will be back in a minute.” (Emphasis ours).

There were two cars parked in the direction the pickup needed to be driven in order to get to the scales, so Tommy asked Mr. Allred if he thought there was sufficient room for him to go through the space between the cars. Mr. Allred told him there was about six inches clearance on that side between the cars ahead of him and then Tommy “ * * * asked me to direct him through this traffic.”

“Well, he went on about this time, of course, the pickup passed and I just still watching him going through here, I just stepped in behind him.”

Appellant continued in his deposition to say that after Tommy had asked his advice as to whether he had room to go between the two parked cars he guided him through, still looking forward in the direction the pickup was moving. Then as the pickup passed he stepped in behind it on the way to the door of the little white office. Just as he stepped in behind the pickup a fertilizer trailer loaded with 7,000 pounds of fertilizer, which he did not know was attached to it, hit him.

“Q. Which way were you looking as you walked toward the building?
A. I was looking, guarding him on through there.
Q. In other words, at the time you started walking towards the building you were still looking towards the west and not towards the building.
A. That’s right. But I had my hand on the back of the pickup when it went by.”

The trailer was right in plaintiff’s face before he saw it. He was knocked down, dragged several feet, his trousers practically stripped off, the ligaments in his right knee were torn and a bone broken in his right ankle.

It is unquestioned in the record that we have an occupier-invitee situation because Mr. Allred was a customer of defendant and was on the way to its office at the time to see about purchasing some fertilizer, the merchandising of which was defendant’s business. Plaintiff pleaded defendant owed him certain duties and failure to fulfill those duties constituted negligence (1) in failing to warn him that a fertilizer tank was hooked to the pickup; (2) in failing to stop the pickup when he started to walk behind it to his right; and (3) in failing to keep a proper lookout for the plaintiff as he started behind the pickup. Defendant pleaded the fact that the fertilizer trailer was hitched or connected to the company pickup or the fact that said trailer was being pulled forward by the pickup were matters which were open and obvious and that defendant or its employee owed plaintiff no duty to do or refrain from doing any of the acts or failure to act alleged against it. The court found in its judgment that [862]*862the pleadings and other summary judgment components; i. e., affidavit and deposition, show an absence of any genuine issue of any material fact. We do not agree.

Mr. Allred’s deposition was taken by defendant. He stated that at the time he drove up to the grounds of defendant its white pickup was parked right next to the south door of the little white office building; another pickup parked on the grounds nearby was white; and about fifteen fertilizer trailers just like the one he later learned was hitched to the pickup were parked side by side “just as close as you can put them.” When asked if he saw the tank hooked to the trailer, he replied: “No, I didn’t notice it because I was — all of the other tanks was right beside it, and it was right, almost against them.”

We do not propose in this opinion to trace the history of the doctrine of assumed risk or its concept relating to “no duty.” That was done most capably by Justice Greenhill of our Supreme Court who authored the Halepeska opinion. That opinion, and subsequent articles by Justice Greenhill in the Baylor Law Review2 and the Texas Bar Journal3 pointed up the several variances that have existed in opinions through the years by their Court in cases involving the doctrine of assumed risk in Texas and some material changes the Court has made from earlier pronouncements.

This case has one facet different to the many cases reviewed in Halepeska and the articles mentioned and that is the fact that defendant’s manager diverted the attention of plaintiff from the very condition that caused his injury. That was the hitch that showed the fertilizer tank to be attached to the trailer.

It must be kept in mind that Mr. Allred said he never saw the tank hitched to the pickup. That is a positive statement sworn to as part of the summary judgment evidence. In the Texas Bar Journal heretofore cited Justice Greenhill said: “What the Supreme Court did in the recent Hale-peska case was to be more certain that the plaintiff did know of the danger and did appreciate the risk.” He also said in the same paragraph that the court narrowed the factual inquiries to knowledge and appreciation of the danger as distinguished from “should have known and appreciated.”

In Halepeska the Court held that the standard to be applied is a subjective one.

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Related

McElhenny v. Thielepape
285 S.W.2d 940 (Texas Supreme Court, 1956)
Halepeska v. Callihan Interests, Inc.
371 S.W.2d 368 (Texas Supreme Court, 1963)
Hall v. Medical Bldg. of Houston
251 S.W.2d 497 (Texas Supreme Court, 1952)
Hernandez v. Heldenfels
374 S.W.2d 196 (Texas Supreme Court, 1963)
Gulbenkian v. Penn
252 S.W.2d 929 (Texas Supreme Court, 1952)

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Bluebook (online)
399 S.W.2d 860, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2867, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allred-v-kima-fertilizer-inc-texapp-1966.