Dallas Railway & Terminal Co. v. Walsh

217 S.W.2d 127, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 866
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 3, 1948
DocketNo. 4591.
StatusPublished

This text of 217 S.W.2d 127 (Dallas Railway & Terminal Co. v. Walsh) 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 Railway & Terminal Co. v. Walsh, 217 S.W.2d 127, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 866 (Tex. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

McGILL, Justice.

This is the second appeal in this case. .The opinion of the Eastland Court of Civil Appeals on the first appeal is reported in 156 S.W.2d 320, and that of the Supreme Court in Walsh v. Dallas Railway & Terminal Co., 140 Tex. 385, 167 S.W.2d 1018, 1019. With modification only as to the amount of recovery we adopt the statement of the nature and result of the suit made by the Supreme Court in the first paragraph of its opinion:

“J. M. Walsh, Jr., brought this suit against the Dallas Railway & Terminal Company for damages for personal injuries received by him as the result of a collision between the ambulance in which he was riding and a passenger bus operated by the Railway & Terminal Company, at a street intersection in the City of Dallas. The insurance carrier of Walsh’s compensation insurance joined in the suit. Judgment was for the plaintiff and the insurance company in the sum of $4,400.00.”

Appellant’s points one and two are that the trial court erred in refusing to follow the holding of the Supreme Court and the Court of Civil Appeals on the former appeal that there was no evidence or that the evidence was insufficient to show defendant’s excessive speed to be a proximate cause of the collision. The contention is that the evidence on this issue which was submitted and answered adversely to appellant on both trials was substantially the same on this trial as that inroduced on the first trial and that therefore the above holdings of the Supreme Court and Court of Civil Appeals are the law of the case. Appellee does not contend that there is any substantial difference in such evidence. His counterpoints are that the Court of Civil Appeals did not hold on the former appeal that the finding by the jury that excessive speed of defendant’s bus was a proximate cause of the collision was without support in the evidence, but assumed that such finding was supported by the evidence; that if the Court of Civil Appeals did so hold such holding is not the law of the case governing this appeal because it was arrived at by reviewing the evidence in connection with other findings which were not made on the subsequent trial and by concluding that the legal effect of such finding was destroyed by such other findings and the Supreme Court held that the Court of Civil Appeals erred in this respect, there being no conflict between the findings. In his argument he urges that the language of the Supreme Court in its opinion should not be construed as justifying the conclusion that the Court of Civil Appeals held that there was no evidence to support the finding that excessive speed was a proximate cause of the collision, and that if it be so construed it should not be regarded as the law of the case since the only holding of the Court of Civil Appeals that there was no evidence to support a jury finding which was before the Supreme Court for review was the holding that ther.e was no evidence to support the finding that failure of the bus driver to keep a proper lookout was a proximate cause of the collision.

The Court of Civil Appeals unquestionably held that under the uncontroverted evidence as a matter of law the bus driver’s failure to keep a proper lookout was not a proximate cause of the collision. 156 S.W.2d 320, at page 324(8). This is tantamount to a holding that there was no evidence to support the jury’s finding on this issue. In connection with the finding that operation of the bus at a speed in excess of 20 miles per hour was a proximate cause of the collision, the court said:

“(10, 11) The jury also found that the bus driver was exceeding 20 miles per hour, which was a proximate cause of the collision. We may assume that such ground of recovery, considered alone, sufficiently supports the judgment. Implicit in the verdict as relates to that ground of recov *129 ery is that the excess speed (over 20 miles per hour) disabled the bus driver to stop or retard the speed of the bus sufficiently to avoid the collision. If excess speed had no such effect, then however negligent it may have been it was not the cause of the collision. But just as for two reasons failure to keep a proper lookout was not a proximate cause of the injuries, for one of said reasons excess speed was not a proximate cause if effect be given to the verdict upon the ground of recovery relating to the failure of the bus driver to apply the brakes. If, as found by the jury, failure to apply the brakes was a proximate cause of the collision, then, as a matter of law, under the undisputed evidence excess speed was not a proximate cause. The findings conflict and are mutually destructive.”

This is a definite holding that the findings that excess speed and failure to apply the brakes were each a proximate cause of the collision conflicted and destroyed each other. The Supreme Court, after holding that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that such findings were in conflict, used the following language:

“(4, 5) However, the Court of Civil Appeals found that there was no evidence to support the jury’s findings that either of the alleged acts of negligence of which the bus driver was convicted was a proximate cause of the collision. There was an assignment that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict on these issues, and since the Court of Civil Appeals held that there was no evidence to support the verdict, we will assume that the court would have held that the evidence was insufficient. Cochran v. Wool Growers Central Storage Co., 140 Tex. 184, 166 S.W.2d 904; Tweed v. Western Union Tel. Co., 107 Tex. 247, 166 S.W. 696, 177 S.W. 957; Lilienthal v. Motor Car Indemnity Exchange, Tex.Com.App., 239 S.W. 906; Rogers & Adams v. Lancaster, Tex.Com.App., 248 S.W. 660; Maddox Motor Co. v. Ford Motor Co., Tex.Com.App., 23 S.W.2d 333. The right to find that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict was a matter exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Court of Civil Appeals, and we have no right to review that holding. Since the case was remanded for a new trial because of the insufficiency of the evidence, it would serve no useful purpose for us to here discuss the law question as to whether or not there was any evidence to support any of the findings of the jury. The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals remanding the cause for a new trial must be affirmed.” (Emphasis ours.)

The application for writ of error to the Supreme Court has been made available to us. Petitioner Walsh asked the Supreme Court to review the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals that there was no evidence to support the finding that failure of the bus driver to keep a proper lookout was a proximate cause of the collision. It is true that in his application for the writ Walsh did not ask the Supreme Court to review any finding by the Court of Civil Appeals that there was no evidence to support the jury’s finding that excess speed was a proximate cause of the collision. While it is a long established rule that the Supreme Court will not reverse a case for an error unassigned in the application •for the writ, see concurring opinion of Chief Justice Alexander in Ramsey v.

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Bluebook (online)
217 S.W.2d 127, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 866, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dallas-railway-terminal-co-v-walsh-texapp-1948.