Ford Motor Co. v. Maddin

76 S.W.2d 474
CourtTexas Commission of Appeals
DecidedNovember 28, 1934
DocketNo. 1448-6117
StatusPublished

This text of 76 S.W.2d 474 (Ford Motor Co. v. Maddin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Commission of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ford Motor Co. v. Maddin, 76 S.W.2d 474 (Tex. Super. Ct. 1934).

Opinion

RYAN, Judge.

Mrs. Stella D. Maddin and her minor son, Eugene Maddin, obtained judgment in the district court of McLennan county against the Ford Motor Company in the aggregate sum of $40,000 damages occasioned by the death of T. E. Maddin, husband of Stella and father of Eugene, which judgment was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 42 S. W.(2d) 165.

Plaintiff in error, the Ford Motor Company, was on Aügust 1, 1928, á manufacturer of Fords and Lincoln automobiles, and maintained a branch office in Dallas, where it assembled and sold such cars. D. C. Woods was head of the Lincoln ear department and Snyder Atwell the traveling representative. The Dallas office appointed certain designated dealers in its territory, which embraced a large portion of the north half of the state, to sell the Lincoln cars, and at times there were approximately 241 such dealers who dealt with the Dallas office, one of them being the Cruger Company (a corporation) situated at Waco, Tex.

[475]*475Each dealer was required to purchase for himself and keep in use at all times a suitable and adequate supply of new Lincoln automobiles for the sole purpose of demonstration and exhibition to prospective purchasers and to maintain same at all times in proper running condition and good clean order and repair.

T. E. Maddin, the deceased, was a salesman in the employ of the Oruger Company in charge of the sale and demonstration of Lincoln cars.

It was the duty of Mr. Atwell to visit said dealers from time to time and inspect the cars which were being used as demonstrators and see that same were kept in good repair, to do which, he testified, “it was necessary that I drive the car belonging to the dealer, the demonstrating car, and as a rule we drive the demonstrator.” It was his duty to assist the local dealers in the sale of Lincoln cars, and, whenever he or the Ford Motor Company learned of a prospective purchaser of a Lincoln car, he took the matter up with the local dealer in that territory.

Mr. Atwell testified further: “I took my orders from D. C. Woods; I was not employed by any other person or concern than the Ford Motor Company; I was not in any way connected with the Cruger Company; it never attempted to assume any control over my duties. In demonstrating Lincoln cars which belonged to the dealer and which we were attempting to sell and in making trips for the purpose of demonstrating,. Mr. Woods and I drove the Lincoln cars, that was the custom and habit we had in connection with our employment; we had to do that in order to check the demonstrating quality of the job; it was part of my duty to ascertain whether or not the particular Lincoln car owned by the local dealer was in good running order and I did that.”

We copy from the statement of the ease by the Court of Civil Appeals, substantially, as follows:

On August 1,1928, Atwell and Woods, having learned of a prospective purchaser of a Lincoln ear at Lampasas, came to Waco, informed the Cruger Company of the prospective purchaser, obtained the demonstrating car in question, and, accompanied by Maddin, left for Lampasas to make a sale of the car. All three men had previously driven the' car and were familiar with it and its operation. On the trip out Woods drove the car to Bel-ton, and either Maddin or Woods drove it from there to Lampasas. The car was not sold, and on. the return trip Atwell drove the car the entire distance from Lampasas to a point within about 4 miles from Waco, the place of collision with a White truck parked on the side of the road, which resulted in the death of both Maddin and Woods.

While at Lampasas some work was done on the ear by a mechanic adjusting the lighting system. On the return trip the parties ate their evening meal at Temple.

Atwell testified that on the trip to Lampas-as, as well as on the return trip, the car was driven at a rate of speed of from 40 to 50 miles an hour; that they could tell when the car was going from 48 to 50 miles, because at that rate the car would make a peculiar roar showing or indicating that it was running at that rate; that he was an experienced driver, familiar with the Lincoln car and with the highway between Temple and Waco; before he reached Lorena, he turned on the lights of the car, which were not in perfect condition but sufficient for him to drive by; there were no cars coming toward him and none behind him with lights to either hinder or help him in seeing; that, just before the collision, he came up a hill or incline, and, as he came over the top. of the hill, he saw a Ford truck headed toward Temple parked on his (Atwell’s) left-hand side of the road and on the Ford truck’s right-hand side; in order to keep from hitting the Ford truck, he turned his car to the right, thereby placing his car farther on the right-hand side of the highway, when he then for the first time saw the White truck parked on the right-hand side of the road headed toward Waco, the way he (Atwell) was going; that in his opinion the White truck was not more than 30 or 40 feet from the Ford truck, and same was parked in such a way that he was not able, at the rate of speed he was driving, to avoid colliding with the White truck; that he struck the left rear end of the White truck with the right front end of the Lincoln car.

The testimony tends to show that the Ford truck had stopped on its right-hand side of the road by reason of a flat easing; that the inside or left wheels thereof were from 8 to 20 inches on the hard-surfaced portion of the road and the remainder on the gravel or shoulder side; that the White truck going toward Waco had, by reason of engine trouble, stopped about 200 feet from the Ford truck, and was parked on its right-hand side of the road with the inside or left wheel extending from 8 to 20 inches on the hard-surfaced portion of the road; that at said point the hard-surfaced portion of the road was 15 feet wide and the gravel portion on each side was 5 [476]*476feet, making the total width of the road 25 feet; that, if the Ford truck and the White truck, under the most favorable aspect of the testimony, had been standing opposite each other, there would have been a space between them'of from 10 to 13 feet. Neither of said trucks had any lights on either the rear or front thereof. They had been parked in said position for about two hours at the time of the collision, waiting for assistance to come from Waco. During the two hours the trucks had •been so parked,'a large number of automobiles, including the Greyhound bus, had passed along the highway between said trucks; said cars being driven, according to witnesses, at all rates of speed from slow up to the limit of the law. It became sufficiently dark for Atwell to, and he did, turn on his car lights some 10 or 15 miles before he reached the place of the collision.

The trial court submitted fifty-nine special issues to the jury, who found, in response thereto, that Atwell was driving tlie car at more than 35 miles per hour, and that he was attempting to pass the truck at a greater rate of speed than 15 miles an hour — each of said acts at the time was in violation of the criminal statutes. The jury found that ep.ek of. said acts was a proximate cause of the injury. The jury further found that. At-well was driving the car at a dangerous rate of speed, without sufficient headlights, and that he failed to keep a proper lookout, and that each of said acts was negligence and a proximate cause of the injury.

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