City of Austin v. Salazar

241 S.W.2d 445
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 23, 1951
Docket9958
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 241 S.W.2d 445 (City of Austin v. Salazar) 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
City of Austin v. Salazar, 241 S.W.2d 445 (Tex. Ct. App. 1951).

Opinion

ARCHER, Chief Justice.

Angela Salazar and her two minor daughters, the widow and only children of the deceased, Miguel Salazar, and Juanita Salazar, the only surviving parent of the deceased, sued under the death statute for damages resulting from the death of Miguel Salazar and for the benefit of their sub-rogee, Security Mutual Casualty Company, a corporation, for the Workmen Compensation Benefits paid by said insurance company. The plaintiffs were in agreement as to their respective rights, and they were represented by the same counsel and no controversy existed between them.

The plaintiffs contended the defendant the City of Austin was negligent in the manner of the construction and maintenance of a bridge, a part of the public streets of the City of Austin, and the approach to said bridge, and that the defendant Hervey L. Eversberg, negligently contributed to the death of deceased.

The cause of the death of the deceased is not in dispute; the pleadings of plaintiffs and the City of Austin, and the testimony of the defendant Eversberg conceded that, the Swift & Company truck, driven by the deceased, collided with some part of the, abutment to the city bridge and overturned, and the deceased was instantly killed,— the exact manner and cause is unknown.

The City of Austin did not plead that the death was the result of an unavoidable accident, but the defendant Eversberg did.

The jury absolved the defendant Evers-berg from negligence, and no judgment was rendered against him, and there is no appeal from such portion of the judgment.

The jury on all the issues of contributory negligence found the deceased was not guilty of any negligence; and found that the view of the abutment on the east side of the culvert where the accident occurred was obstructed by vegetation and that the deceased failed to see the headwalls of the bridge, and that his failure to see the head-walls was not negligence.

The jury found the City of Austin negligent in five particulars, but as to each act of negligence the jury found that each respectively was not a proximate cause of the injuries.

The jury found that the death of the deceased was the result of an unavoidable accident.

*447 The court on proper motion held there was no evidence to support the finding that Salazar’s death was an unavoidable accident. The court further found that the negligent acts of the City of Austin, as found by the jury as a matter of law, were proximate causes of the death of the deceased. Disregarding the answers of the jury to the contrary, the trial court rendered judgment for plaintiffs on the balance of the verdict as returned by the jury.

The appeal is based on 32 points assigned as error.

The first is that it was error for the court to disregard the answer of the jury to the effect that the death of Salazar was the result of an unavoidable accident, and in refusing to render judgment for the City.

Points 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are directed to the error of the court in refusing to render judgment for the City on the verdict that the negligence of the City, in failing to cut the weeds, or to provide a warning sign, or to paint the concrete abutments in a conspicuous manner, or to maintain proper warning posts at the approach to the culvert, or to maintain a proper inspection of the street and culvert, was not a proximate cause of the death of Miguel Salazar.

Points Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are directed to the error of the court in submitting special issues Nos. 1 to 13 and 23, 24 and 25 to the jury.

Special issues 1, 2 and 3 inquired of the jury if the City had failed to cut the weeds, and, if so, was such failure negligence, and, if negligence, was it the proximate cause of the death of the deceased. The last issue was answered in the negative.

Issues 4, 5 and 6 inquired if the street was narrower as it crossed the culvert than it was approaching the culvert on the south, and if the City failed to provide a warning sign indicating such condition, if any; and if such failure, if any, was negligence.

Special issue No. 7 required the jury to find if the negligence, if any, was the proximate cause of the death of the deceased. The jury answered special issues Nos. 4, 5 and 6 in the affirmative, and answered issue¡ No. 7 that such negligence was not the proximate cause of the death of Salazar.

Special issues Nos. 8, 9 and 10 inquired 'if the City had failed to paint the concrete abutments in a conspicuous manner, and, if so, was such failure negligence, and if such negligence was a proximate cause of the death of Salazar. Issues Nos. 8 and 9 were answered'“Yes” and issue No. 10 was answered “No”.

Special issues Nos. 11, 12 and 13 inquired of the jury if the City had failed to maintain proper warning posts, and, if so, was such failure negligence, and if any such negligence was a proximate cause of the death of the deceased. Issues Nos. 11 and 12 were answered by the jury in the affirmative and issue No. 3 was answered in the negative.

In answer to special issue No. 23 the jury found that the City had failed to maintain a proper inspection of the street and culvert involved in the controversy and that such failure was negligence, but that such negligence was not the proximate cause of the death of the deceased Salazar.

Plaintiffs alleged that on or about August 26, 1949, Miguel Salazar was employed by Swift & Co., of San Antonio, Texas, as a truck driver and that on that date, while engaged in driving a Swift & Co. refrigerator truck north on East Avenue in the City of Austin, he had been followed for several blocks south of the 5300 block by a 1948 DeSoto automobile, the driver of which desired to pass the Swift & Co. truck.

Plaintiffs alleged that in the vicinity of the 5300 block on East Avenue the DeSoto began to pass the truck, and the truck moved slightly to the right to allow the DeSoto to pass and then proceeded in a straight line with its right wheels partially on and partially off the east edge of the pavement until the right rear dual wheel of the truck, which was constructed to follow a path slightly to the right of the *448 front wheel, collided with a concrete abutment at the edge of the pavement; that as a result of this collision the truck was thrown completely out of control, overturned and killed Miguel Salazar.

Plaintiffs alleged that a heavy growth of weeds made both sides of the concrete culvert invisible to traffic approaching from the south, and that neither the deceased nor the driver of the DeSoto saw the concrete abutments prior to the accident; that this dangerous condition had existed for such a length of time that the City had notice of it.

It was alleged that the City of Austin, its servants, agents and employees were negligent in—

(1) failing to “cut or mow the heavy growth of weeds and brush surrounding and hiding the aforesaid culvert”;

(2) failing “to provide any type of warning sign whatsoever indicating the narrowing of the street at the culvert”;

(3) failing “to paint the concrete abutment aforesaid in order to make conspicuous the aforesaid hidden hazard”;

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Bluebook (online)
241 S.W.2d 445, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-austin-v-salazar-texapp-1951.