English v. Murphy

145 S.W.2d 201
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 30, 1940
DocketNo. 3726
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 145 S.W.2d 201 (English v. Murphy) 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
English v. Murphy, 145 S.W.2d 201 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

O’QUINN, Justice.

This is an appeal from an ordér of the 58th district court of Jefferson County, Texas, overruling a plea of privilege.

J. H. Murphy was plaintiff in'the court below. He filed suit in the district court of Jefferson County against Guy Geardana, a resident of Jefferson County, Texas, and J. M. English, a resident of Harris County, Texas, doing business as J. M. English Truck Lines, to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been suffered by his wife, Modene Murphy, occasioned by a collision between the automobile in which he and his wife were riding, and an automobile driven by defendant below, Guy Geardana, in conjunction with the acts of the driver of a truck driven by an employe of defendant J. M. English, against each of the defendants and alleged that said negligent acts combined caused the injuries suffered by his wife Modene Murphy.

The defendant J. M. English duly filéd his plea of privilege to be sued in Harris County, the admitted county of his residence.

Plaintiff seasonably filed his controverting affidavit, and the cause was regularly heard, and judgment entered overruling the plea. No findings of fact or conclusions of law were filed by the court, but there [202]*202is in the record a statement of facts duly certified by the- court stenographer and approved by the court. The facts are undisputed: On the day of the accident, ap-pellee, Murphy and his wife, were driving easterly on State Highway 90, and the English truck was approaching him from the opposite direction. Immediately behind the truck Geardana was driving in his car following the truck. There was a drag-line on and attached to the truck which extended more than twelve feet and a half into the air over the truck. There’ was a telephone wire stretched over and across the highway. This wire on one side was supported by a wooden 2" X 4" extension fastened to the top of a pole. This wire was approximately twelve feet and six inches above the surface of the highway. The truck passed under this wire, but the extension supporting the dragline on the truck caught the wire and pulled down the 2" X 4" wooden piece extending from the pole. The ’ defendant Geardana driving in his car immediately behind the truck observing the falling 2" X 4" and wire to avoid same suddenly pulled his' car to the left-hand side of -the highway, and ran his car into plaintiff’s car which at that moment was passing the truck, causing it to overturn and causing great damages thereto ;j.nd severe injuries to his. wife and himself. The dragline attached to the truck was thirteen feet and six inches high measured from the concrete top of the highway to the top of the drag-line. The telephone wire was twelve feet and six inches above the pavement of the highway. The accident occurred at Raywood, a small town in Liberty County, on State Highway 90.

Plaintiff alleged numerous acts of negligence against both the defendants, Gear-dana and English, and that said negligent acts concurred and operated together in bringing about the damages suffered by Mrs. Murphy; that the negligence of each' of the defendants, acting together, was the proximate cause of the collision, and without which the collision would not have occurred.

Murphy testified: “I was going into the edge of Raywood, proceeding east. I met a truck, dragline truck. Understand, I dont know what a dragline means, because I wasn’t raised in the east, and they don’t have them where I live. This truck had a high back to it, some kind of crane or something to it, and I noticed this crane hook and overhead wire, and I slowed down. I thought the man was working on the wire at first. And I could see the wire bobbing up and down, and pulling it, and I thought they were probably fixing to pass it over a car or something or another. So I slowed down, watching the wird. And just as I came along abreast of this truck the wire broke and the truck passed on by me, and this other car came out from behind it and hit me at a left angle and turned my car over.”

Geardana testified that he lived in Beaumont and waa going to Houston, and had been following the truck going about 35 miles an hour; that he was about 50 or 60 feet behind the truck, and that somebody hollered to him to look out for the wire, and he saw a piece of timber and wire come down toward his windshield and that was the last he remembered.

Appellee, Murphy, alleged various acts of negligence on the part of both English and Geardana, and that “The negligence of the defendants, as set out hereinabove, concurred and acted together in bringing about plaintiff’s damages; that the negligence of each of said defendants, acting together, was the proximate cause of said collision, and without which said collision would not have happened.”

Appellant insists that as the act of negligence alleged against him, and that alleged against his co-defendant Geardana, were separate and distinct acts, not done jointly, venue against him does not lie in Jefferson County, though plaintiff does have a cause of action against defendant Geardana in said county, and the court erred in not sustaining his plea of privilege to be sued in Harris County.

Appellee contends that as the acts of defendant English ^nd Geardana' were committed at the same time and place, and the collision was the result of the combined acts of both, and as it required the concurring negligent acts of both of said defendants to produce the collision, and that the collision would not have occurred but for the joint effect of each of their acts, and defendant Geardana residing in Jefferson County, the court did not err in overruling defendant English’s plea of privilege.

We think appellee’s contention is sound. That the facts as developed raised issues of actionable negligence against each of the defendants is without question. English was operating a truck on State High[203]*203way 90, and the undisputed evidence is that the truck with its load and drag chain extended above the pavement of the highway thirteen feet and -six inches. Article 827a, Section 3, subdivision '(b) of the Texas Penal Code, Vernon’s Annotated, provides: “No vehicle unladen or with load shall exceed a height of twelve feet six inches (12' 6"), including load.” The truck with its drag chain extended 13' and so the truck was being operated in violation of the Penal Code, and therefore was negligence as a matter of law. Geardana was running his car immediately behind the truck, at a rate, he said, of about 35 miles an hour. When he saw the falling timber and wire, which English’s truck had caught and pulled from its fastening, and that same was apparently going to strike his windshield, he suddenly swerved his car to the left across the highway and struck appellee’s car, turned it over, and Mrs. Murphy, who was riding in their car with her husband, was seriously injured. Murphy was on his proper side of the road travelling very slowly — Geardana suddenly ran from behind the truck over to the left side of the highway striking the car of Murphy. The acts of negligence of both defendants English and Geardana were contemporaneous in time, and the both of them, combined, produced the collision which caused the injury. Neither alone would have caused the collision, but concurring they jointly caused the collision, and so were the proximate cause of same.

The rule seems to be well settled that “if the concurrent negligence of two or more persons combined .together results in an injury to a third person he may recover from either or all.” West v. Bruns, Tex.Civ.App., 294 S.W. 235, 236, 45 C.J. 924.

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Bluebook (online)
145 S.W.2d 201, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/english-v-murphy-texapp-1940.