Chicago, M. G.R. Co. v. Wheeler

1 Tenn. App. 100, 1925 Tenn. App. LEXIS 16
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJuly 11, 1925
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 1 Tenn. App. 100 (Chicago, M. G.R. Co. v. Wheeler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, M. G.R. Co. v. Wheeler, 1 Tenn. App. 100, 1925 Tenn. App. LEXIS 16 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

CLARK, J.

The plaintiff below,' Jim Wheeler, sued the defendants below, Chicago, Memphis & Gulf Railroad Company and Illinois Central Railroad Company in an action for damages for wrongfully causing the flooding and washing of his crops.

The ease originated before a justice of the peace and was appealed from his judgment to the circuit court of Dyer county, where it'was tried to the circuit judge and a jury and resulted in a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $50. Defendant’s motion for a new trial having been overruled, judgment was entered against it for the amount of the verdict, together with the cost of the cause, and de *102 fendants prayed, were granted, and have perfected, an appeal to this court, and have filed 14 assignments of error.

The second assignment is as follows:

“The court erred in overruling and disallowing the motion of defendants for a directed verdict made at the close of the plaintiff’s proof in chief.”

This assignment is overruled, for the reason that 'it is well settled that where a defendant, after denial 6f his motion for a directed verdict made at the close-of plaintiff’s proof, introduces evidence, he waives any error in the court’s ruling, and must renew his motion at the close of all the evidence, if he expects to rely thereon. John Gerber Co. v. Mrs. L. D. Smith, 150 Tenn. 255, 263 S. W. 974.

Through the first assignment it is insisted that there is no material evidence in the record to support the verdict of the jury, and through the third assignment it is insisted that the trial judge erred in overruling defendant’s motion for a directed verdict in its behalf made at the close of all the evidence.

We will dispose of these assignments together and, to do so, makes necessary a statement of the material facts of the case. The defendants are the. owners of "a hailroad that passes through Dyer county and other portions of the state of Tennessee and other states. There is a certain tract of land lying north of said railroad and west of a ditch to be hereinafter referred to and which tract of land during the years 1923 and 1924 was leased and cultivated by the plaintiff, Jim Wheeler. When the defendants constructed said line of railroad, which was about 17 or 18 years ago, they constructed a bridge or trestle over said ditch. Said trestle was composed of one bent about 14 feet long and this bent was supported by piles driven in the sides of the embankment where the ditch passed between. Said trestle remained in that condition (probably some repairs were made 'on it from time to time) until the early part of April, 1923, and from the date of the construction of the trestle to the date last mentioned the water from said ditch passed under said trestle free from obstruction and did not overflow the land in question or injure the crops growing thereon.

In the early part of April, 1923, the defendants reconstructed said trestle. As reconstructed it was composed of two bents, each 14 feet long and supported by a row of piles driven in the center of the ditch. The old piles that had supported the original trestle were cut off at a point some distance above the ground, and the stumps were permitted to remain standing in the ditch until some time in October, 1923.

In April, 1923, after the reconstruction' of the trestle, .and again in July of the same year, heavy rains fell. Some of the witnesses *103 state rather indirectly that the rains were “unprecedented,” but it is clear from the record, taking it as a whole, that they did not mean to say that no similar rains had ever fallen in that section.

The April rain damaged plaintiff’s corn that was then- up, had been worked, and was in a good state of cultivation for that season of the year. The July rain damaged plaintiff’s cotton and com also. The record shows that, prior to that time, the seasons had been good, plaintiff had worked his- crop well and it was 'in "a good state of cultivation. Some of the com injured in April had to be replanted and some of the cotton was entirely washed away in July and- some of the corn injured to such an extent that it made very little. It is for these injuries that plaintiff sued.

As stated, for the 15 or 16 years during which the railroad had been constructed prior to the reconstruction- of the trestle in 1923 said ditch had never overflowed sufficiently to damage any of the crops growing near same. The record also shows that the new piling driven in the center of the ditch and the stumps of the old piling left in the ditch caused drifts to accumulate and obstructed the water and this would increase the overflow.

Defendants undertook to - and did show that at one place in the ditch north of the trestle, and on or near the land cultivated by plaintiff, one or two trees were growing in the ditch and there were certain vines and vegetation growing in same. But, as we understand the record, the main break in the side of the ditch and through Avhieh the water came that caused the material damage to plaintiff’s crop was between the trees and the trestle, so that the trees would tend to minimize rather than aggravate the overflow. In any event, it was a question for the jury as to whether the overflow was caused by the trestle or by other obstructions in the ditch. There is in the record material evidence that it was caused by the trestle, and, the jury having accepted that view of the matter, we are bound by its 'findings. In the case of Carriger v. Railroad Co., 7 Lea (75 Tenn.,) 393, it is said:

“It was the duty of the defendant in the construction of its roadbed to provide against the known habits of these streams.' It is no defense for it to say that it was only in extraordinary times the injuries now complained of could result. The rises in the water had for all time occurred at intervals before the building of the road, and it was to be conclusively presumed they would occur afterwards from similar causes.
“In Addison on Torts, Wood’s Edition, p. 95, it is said: ‘Land cannot be cultivated or enjoyed unless the springs which rise on the surface and the rains that fall thereon be allowed to make their escape through the adjoining and neighboring lands. All lands, therefore, are of necessity burdened with the *104 servitude of receiving and discharging all waters which flow down to them from lands on a higher level, and if the owner or occupier of the lower lands interposes artificial impediments in the way of the natural flow of the water through or across his lands, and by so doing causes the higher lands to be flooded, he is responsible in damages for infringing the natural right of the possessor of such higher land to the natural outfall and drainage of the soil, unless he has gained a right to pen back water by contract, grant, or prescription.’ ”

See, also Railway Co. v. Higdon, 111 Tenn., 121, 76 S. W., 895; C., N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Roddy et al., 132 Tenn., 568, 179 S. W., 143, L. R. A. 1916E, 974, and notes to the case of Avery v. Vermont Electric Co., 59 L. R. A., 863.

We think there is in the record material evidence to support the verdict of the jury and the first and third assignments are overruled.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth assignments, respectively, are as follows:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Troutt v. Branham
660 S.W.2d 502 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1983)
Hastings v. Hughes
438 S.W.2d 349 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1968)
Smith v. Leedy
299 S.W.2d 29 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1956)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1 Tenn. App. 100, 1925 Tenn. App. LEXIS 16, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-m-gr-co-v-wheeler-tennctapp-1925.