Edison Co. v. Street Railway Co.

42 S.W. 1009, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 320, 1897 Tex. App. LEXIS 371
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 10, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 42 S.W. 1009 (Edison Co. v. Street Railway Co.) 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
Edison Co. v. Street Railway Co., 42 S.W. 1009, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 320, 1897 Tex. App. LEXIS 371 (Tex. Ct. App. 1897).

Opinion

NEILL, Associate Justice.

This suit was instituted by the appellee, J. W. Dixon, against the appellant and the San Antonio Street Railway Company, to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been inflicted upon him by the concurrent negligence of the two companies. The acts of negligence averred are embodied in our conclusions of fact.

The San Antonio Edison Company, answered, first, by general demurrer; second, by special exceptions; third, by general denial; fourth, that the alleged defective pole, by the breaking of which Dixon was injured, was the property of its codefendant, and that it had exercised no control or rights thereto; that appellant employed Dixon to move certain of its wires from poles belonging to the San Antonio Street Railway Company, and to place them on poles belonging to appellant on the opposite side of the street; that Dixon knew that the poles from which the wires were to be removed were not the property of appellant, and that they belonged to the other company, and in accepting such employment he assumed all risks incident thereto, and had every opportunity the appellant had or could have had for ascertaining whether or not the' pole was safe. It further pleaded (fifth) the contract between it and the San *323 Antonio Street Railway Company, the substance of which is stated in our conclusions of fact; that appellant was not authorized by the contract to place its wires upon the poles of the other company, but they were placed there by mistake of its employes; that when the San Antonio Street Railway Company discovered that the wires had been placed on its poles, it demanded a rental for the use of its poles in support of said wires, which demand was acquiesced in by appellant, and rent paid by it to said street railway company for the use of said poles up to December 2, 1895, when it ordered the removal of the wires as aforesaid, and while removing same, appellant Dixon was injured; and that if there was any liability resting on either company to him for injuries, it was upon the San Antonio Street Railway Company. It prayed, in the event that Dixon recovered judgment against it, that it have judgment over against the other company for such amount as might be so recovered.

The San Antonio Street Railway Company answered, first, by adopting the answer of the San Antonio Edison Company as to the matters pleaded to Dixon’s cause of action; second, by general and special exceptions to the cross-action of appellant; third, a general denial; and fourth, by special answer alleging facts showing that it owed no duty to Dixon, and was in no way responsible for his injuries.

The cause was tried before a jury and resulted in a verdict and judgment for Dixon against appellant for $3000, and a verdict upon a peremptory instruction in favor of the San Antonio Street Railway Company against Dixon, and also.in favor of the San Antonio Street Railway Company against appellant’s cross action. From this judgment this appeal is prosecuted, and the appellee has filed cross-assignments of error.

Conclusions of Fact.—On and prioy to December '38, 1895, each of the street railway companies aforementioned owned and operated an electric street railway on Pine Street, in ihé city of San Antonio, Texas, their respective railways running parallel to each other on said street, and for the purpose of operating their railways the companies had constructed and maintained on Pine Street a number of poles on either side thereof, each pole being about twenty-five feet high, and placed at intervals of about 100 feet apart on either side of the street opposite each other. Span wires were stretched from the top of pole to pole across the street, and from these wires were suspended the trolley wires for operating the cars of the respective companies. The poles and span wires were used jointly in supporting the trolley wires of the respective companies.

On the top of the poles on the western side of the street was attached by wooden brackets a feed wire owned and used by appellant for supplying its trolley wire' with electricity.

The poles on both sides of the street were placed there prior to August 3, 1893, by appellant, whose corporate name was then the Citizens Electric Power and Street Railway Company. On August 3,1893, by an agreement in writing executed by both companies, the Citizens Electric Power and Street Railway Company (now appellant) transferred to the San *324 Antonio Street Railway Company all the poles on the west side of Pine Street, and one-half of the span wires attached thereto up to the center of the street, and it ivas agreed between them that the San Antonio Street Railway Company should maintain and keep in repair the poles on the west side of the street, and the west half of said span wires, and that said poles and said span wires were to be used in common between both companies in the conduct of their respective street railway systems. In this contract the appellant retained its property in the poles on the east side of the street, and agreed to maintain and keep them in repair, together with the wires attached to them, so that they would at all times be in a condition for use in common between the parties. Each company agreed to do everything in its power to facilitate in every manner possible the .friendly operation of cars upon its respective track over and along Pine Street, and it was stipulated that whenever either party should fail and neglect to do everything incumbent upon it to do by the terms of the contract, the other party might, at its option, do anything proper to be done to enable the ears of both parties to be operated over and along said street to advantage, and that when either party should be compelled to do an act or incur any expense under the terms of the agreement which the other party was bound to do or pay, then the expense for doing such an act should be a debt in favor of the party who did the act or paid such expenses, against the party upon which the duty rested to perform such acts or pay such expenses, and that such debt should be immediately due and payable.

It was subsequent to this agreement that the San Antonio Edison Company placed on the poles on the west side of Pine Street the electric feed wire aforementioned, and at the time of the accident hereinafter mentioned and long prior thereto appellant had been using said poles for the support of said feed wire, and had been paying to the San Antonio Street Railway Company a yearly rental for the use of the same.

On December 28, 1895, appellee, J. W. Dixon, with other hands, was employed by appellant to take down and remove said feed wire from the poles on the west side of Pine Street, and put the same in a new position on its poles on the east side of that street. It was necessary for the appellee, in the pursuance of his employment, to climb the poles for the purpose of detaching the feed wire from the brackets to which-it was attached, and for that purpose he climbed- one of the poles on the west side of Pine Street, and while engaged in loosening the feed wire from the brackets at the top of the pole, it broke near its lower end, and appellee was thereby with great force and violence thrown upon the ground and seriously injured. The place where the pole broke was rotten at and from its center near to its circumference, the unsound part at that place being surrounded only by a thin shell of sound wood, through which hacks had been cut before the pole was erected.

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Bluebook (online)
42 S.W. 1009, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 320, 1897 Tex. App. LEXIS 371, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/edison-co-v-street-railway-co-texapp-1897.