Dickey v. Jackson

275 S.W. 310, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 738
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 27, 1925
DocketNo. 8610. [fn*]
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 275 S.W. 310 (Dickey v. Jackson) 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
Dickey v. Jackson, 275 S.W. 310, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 738 (Tex. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

PLEASANTS, C. J.

This suit, as originally brought by appellee, was against Harris-Hahlo Company, a corporation, to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused plaintiff by the negligence of the defendant corporation, acting through its agent and employee, Mrs. Dickey, in dressing plaintiff’s hair by giving it what is known and designated as a “permanent wave.”

The defendant corporation answered by general demurrer and general denial, and especially denied that Mrs. Dickey or any of her employees were employed by Harris-I-Iahlo Company or that said company had any interest in or control over the beauty parlor in which plaintiff received the injuries complained of in her petition. It then pleaded by cross-action that the beauty parlor, in which plaintiff claims to have received injuries was owned by the Marinel-lo Company, an Illinois corporation, and was conducted by Mrs. Dickey as agent for said corporation, and prayed that, in event plaintiff should recover any judgment against it, it have judgment over against the Mari-nello Company and Mrs. Dickey. Citation was issued on this cross-action of defendant and served upon Mrs. Dickey as agent of the Marinello Company.

M<rs. Dickey filed an affidavit denying that she was the agent of said company, and upon motion of an amicus curiae the service was quashed, and the suit against that company was thereafter abandoned. Mrs. Dickey also filed a sworn plea of coverture, in which it is alleged that she is and was, at the time plaintiff’s cause of action arose, the wife of C. H. Dickey, with whom she lives in the city of Houston, and asks that the suit against her be abated and dismissed. The plea in abatement was overruled.

Thereafter Mrs. Dickey and her husband, O. H. Dickey, were duly cited to appear and answer the cross-action of defendant Harris-Hahlo Company. Plaintiff filed no amended petition setting up a cause of action against Mrs. Dickey, and nu citation was issued upon any claim or demand of plaintiff against her.

*311 In a supplemental petition filed on May 23, 1923, which was prior to the orders overruling the appellant’s plea in abatement and quashing the service on the Marinello Company, plaintiff, after demurring to the amended answer of the Harris-Hahlo Company, denying each and all of its allegations, and, realleging and amplifying her cause of action against said company, pleads the same cause of action against the Marinello Company and Mrs. Dickey as the ageht of said company, and who it is alleged .negligently caused the injuries to plaintiff complained of in her amended petition, and prays, in the alternative, that if for any reason she is not entitled to recover against Harris-Hahlo Company that she recover the amount of her damages from the Marinello Company and Mrs. Dickey, jointly and severally.

On October 10,1923, appellant Mrs. Dickey, joined by her husband, filed an answer in which they demur generally to plaintiff’s original petition and to the cross-action of defendant Harris-Hahlo Company, and deny generally the allegations of said petition and cross-bill. '.They further pleaded assumed risk and contributory negligence on the part, of plaintiff. The concluding plea in their answer is as follows:

“These defendants say: That the defendant Mrs. Edith Dickey is a competent and capable operator in the process of making a permanent wave in the hair. That the process used upon the plaintiff was the usual and proper method of doing such work, and was done in the usual and in a careful and in an expert manner. That all instruments and apparatus used in .connection with said work at said time were thoroughly and carefully sterilized. That no excessive amount of heat was used, and that, if the plaintiff had a blister on her scalp, and if the plaintiff’s scalp became thereafter infected, the same was the result of other causes than the said process of making a permanent wave, and that said^ process was in no manner connected with or caused such injuries, all of which defendants are ready to verify.”

The trial in the court below with a jury resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff against appellants Mrs. Dickey and her husband for the sum of 35,000, and in favor of Harris-Hahlo Company that plaintiff take nothing against it.

In response to special issues^ the jury found that the employees of the beauty parlor were negligent in manipulating and operating the process of fixing a permanent wave in plaintiff’s hair, that such negligence was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury, and that plaintiff had suffered damages in the sum of $5,000 by the injuries complained of in her petition. They further found that Mrs. Derrington (the employee in the beauty parlor, who put the permanent wave in plaintiff’s hair) followed the usual method and process in making the wave for the plaintiff; that plaintiff did not assume the risk of the injury sustained by her by submitting herself to the process necessary to have the jvave put in; that the injury to plaintiff’s scalp and skin was not the result of a dandruff infection which existed in her head prior to the putting in of the permanent wave. They further found that the Harris-Hahlo Company held itself out to the public as owning and operating the Marinello beauty parlor, located in the Harris-Hahlo building, and that plaintiff knew of such holding out but did not exercise ordinary care to ascertain the true ownership and management of the beauty parlor; that, if plaintiff had known that the place was owned and operated by Mrs. Dickey and pot by Harris-Hahlo Company, she would have refused to submit to the hair treatment in question. They further found that, if the shop had been owned by Harris-Hahlo Company, plaintiff would have suffered the same injury, and that plaintiff exercised ordinary care in the treatment of her scalp after she received the injury of which she complains.

We deem it unnecessary to set out or discuss the various propositions presented in appellant’s brief, and shall only state our con-' elusions upon • the objections made to the judgment which in our opinion require its reversal.

The fundamental objection is that the cause of action shown by the undisputed evidence, and the finding of fact by the jury upon which the. judgment is based, is not supported by the pleadings, The only allegations in any of appellee’s pleadings of liability on the part of Mrs. Dickey for plaintiff’s injuries, and the only prayer for a judgment against her, are found in plaintiff’s supplemental petition. A plaintiff’s cause of action is not properly pleaded when found only in a supplemental petition, the proper office of which is to reply to defensive matters pleaded by the defendant.

But waiving this objection to the form of the pleading, plaintiff’s allegations of liability on the part of Mrs. Dickey are confined to allegations charging her as the agent of either the Harris-Hahlo Company or the Marinello Company with the negligent acts which caused plaintiff’s injury. There is not even an intimation in the plaintiff’s pleadings that Mrs. Dickey, as owner of the beauty parlor, was liable to plaintiff for injuries inflicted upon plaintiff by the negligence of 'the employees of Mrs. Dickey, or that the negligence .of any one other than Mrs. Dickey caused plaintiff’s injuries.

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Related

Stamper v. Scholtz
17 S.W.2d 184 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1929)
Dickey v. Jackson
293 S.W. 584 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1927)
Jackson v. Dickey
281 S.W. 1043 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1926)

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Bluebook (online)
275 S.W. 310, 1925 Tex. App. LEXIS 738, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dickey-v-jackson-texapp-1925.