Dallas Coffee & Tea Co. v. WilLiams

45 S.W.2d 724
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 5, 1931
DocketNo. 10906
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 45 S.W.2d 724 (Dallas Coffee & Tea Co. v. WilLiams) 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
Dallas Coffee & Tea Co. v. WilLiams, 45 S.W.2d 724 (Tex. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

JONES, C. J.

Appellee, Jesse Williams, a colored man, in a suit in a district court of Dallas county, had a former judgment for $350 set aside, and was awarded a judgment for $1,650 against appellants, Dallas Coffee & Tea Company and the Automobile Underwriters Insurance Company, and $30 additional as punitive damages against the latter appellant for willful trespass upon his person. Appellants will hereinafter be styled the coffee company and the insurance company, respectively. An appeal has been duly perfected to this court and the following are the facts:

On December 1, 1927, appellee, an employee of a drug store in the St. George Hotel in Dallas, started from his home in East Dallas to his work, intending to board a street car at the corner of Main and Hawkins streets. At about 5:30 or 6 o’clock in the morning, and while it was still quite dark, he walked out from the sidewalk on the northeast corner of the intersection of these streets, and just as he was in the act of boarding the car which had stopped to receive him as a passenger, he was struck by a light Ford truck owned by the coffee company, and operated by one of its employees, and was either knocked or carried by the truck across the intersection of these streets just beyond the west line of Hawkins street. The driver stopped the truck just beyond where appellee was lying in Main street, and went to appellee to render assistance. The street car motorman also went to him and others gathered at the place. Appellee was taken to Parkland Hospital, owned and operated by Dallas county.

The undisputed evidence is that appellee, just after the collision and until he was received at the hospital, was in an unconscious condition. Appellee received injuries on both sides of his head and a number of body bruises, specially on one of his legs. An X-ray-examination did not show any skull fracture. However, there is medical testimony to the effect that the character of X-ray picture taken would not have disclosed a lateral fracture had there been one, and medical testimony to the effect that the symptoms appellee developed, while he was at the hospital, and the symptoms shown after he left the hospital, and up to the time of the trial, were such as would be consistent with his having received a lateral fracture of the skull.

The evidence as to the mental condition of [726]*726appellee from the afternoon of December 1, 1927, until several days after he left the hospital, is in conflict. Appellee was taken from the hospital on December 23, 1927, on the insistence of his wife, Sophie Williams, and against the advice of the hospital authorities. The mental condition of appellee from the time he entered the hospital until- about the time he left is an important inquiry in this case.

On December 10, 1927, a power of attorney and an assignment of one-half of his cause of action was executed by appellee and his said wife jointly to John W. West, an attorney, and to Edmund Wiley, an employee of West. This power of attorney gave full authority to enforce appellee’s claim for damages for the injuries he received against the party or parties liable therefor, either by suit or compromise, and was executed by appellee at the hospital. After he was so authorized, West, as attorney for appellee, discovered that the employer of appellee carried no workmen’s compensation insurance, and that the insurance company carried liability insurance, covering such a happening as the instant one, for the coffee company. West got in communication with an authorized representative of the insurance company, with the result that a settlement was made of the claim for the payment of $359 as damages, and the further payment of hospital and medical bills. This settlement was consummated December 14, 1927, by filing suit for damages on substantially the same grounds of negligence alleged in the instant suit against the coffee company, and the immediate entry of an agreed judgment in the sum of $350' and hospital and medical bills, after an answer being filed at the same time by an attorney for the insurance company. No evidence was introduced. The amount of this judgment was immediately settled by payment into the registry of the court the sum of $359, and by the clerk of the court at once executing a check in such sum, payable to the order of West and Jesse Williams and delivery to West. West soon thereafter secured the in-dorsement of Jesse Williams, by his mark, and on December 19,1927, delivered to Sophie Williams $159 of this money as Jesse Williams’ part of the judgment, and took a receipt therefor, purported to have been executed by Jesse Williams and Sophie Williams, but Jesse Williams’ name was written toy his wife, Sophie Williams. Jesse Williams did not personally receive the $150, nor did he personally expend any part of said sum; however, his wife, without his knowledge or consent, spent a substantial portion of the money in payment of rent and in the purchase of groceries for the use of the family. This was without the knowledge or consent of Jesse Williams.

Dr. John F. Ford, at the instance of the insurance company, examined appellee at the hospital on the afternoon of the injury, and on several times subsequent to such date, and reported the result of his examinations to the insurance company. These examinations were made by Dr. Ford, without the consent of appellee or his wife, and without the specific authority of the hospital, but none of these parties made objection to such examinations. The testimony of Dr. Ford is to the effect that there were no serious injuries inflicted upon appellee by reason of the accident ; that appellee, though stupid at times, which he ascribed to medicine administered, was at each time he examined him conscious and in possession of his mental faculties.

The evidence of Dr. Carpenter, who attended the appellee as his personal physician during the time he was at the hospital, is to the effect that during all of the time at the hospital he was not in such mental condition as to enable him to comprehend the nature and meaning of any character of contract. The “bedside notes,” taken at the hospital by the interne in charge of appellee, are to the effect that appellee was unconscious when admitted to the hospital and did not talk rationally a great deal of the time while at the hospital. The notes taken on the last three or four days of appellee’s stay in the hospital indicate an improved physical condition, but are silent as to his mental condition during such time. There is additional testimony supporting both theories as to appellee’s mental condition and as to the extent of his injuries, while he was in the hospital. The evidence of J. T. Drake, employer of appellee, is to me effect that he visited appellee many times at the hospital and never found him in a conscious condition or heard him make a rational statement during such time. The evidence of Mrs. Drake is to the same effect. The evidence of West is that he was entirely conscious and rational at every time he visited him, at the time he executed the power of attorney, and at the time the money was paid.

Appellee’s petition seeks to set aside the judgment entered in the district court on December 14, 1927, on the ground that fraud was perpetrated on appellee by the insurance company, for its own use and benefit, as liability insurer, in the name of the coffee company. As to the fraud’ perpetrated on appellee, it is alleged that, under its contract of liability insurance, the insurance company could exercise the exclusive right to effect a settlement of appellee’s claim and to defend any suit instituted thereon. This contract, however, was not introduced in evidence.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
45 S.W.2d 724, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dallas-coffee-tea-co-v-williams-texapp-1931.