Ft. Worth & Denver Railway Company v. Claude Threadgill and E. J. Haymes and Nunn Electric Supply Company

228 F.2d 307
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 17, 1956
Docket15494
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 228 F.2d 307 (Ft. Worth & Denver Railway Company v. Claude Threadgill and E. J. Haymes and Nunn Electric Supply Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ft. Worth & Denver Railway Company v. Claude Threadgill and E. J. Haymes and Nunn Electric Supply Company, 228 F.2d 307 (5th Cir. 1956).

Opinions

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

This suit arose out of an accident which occurred at the grade crossing of Farm Road No. 400 and the appellant railroad’s line in Lubbock County, Texas. On Friday afternoon, October 9, 1953, the appellee Threadgill and two other section hands and a foreman of the railroad were sent to a point about 400 yards beyond the crossing to build a sand barrier out of crossties. When they finished with this job, and were preparing to leave it, the foreman ordered the men to run the motor car and push car on which they had brought the ties back to the grade crossing, where they could be turned around. Ordinarily, this is done on which is called a setoff, a low platform made by placing several pieces of lumber parallel to and in between the rails and for two or three feet to one side or the other of them. However, any [309]*309firm ground nearly level with the tracks will suffice, and the foreman elected to use the highway shoulder, although there was a setoff about 700 yards from where the men had just finished working, and in the direction in which they were returning.

On the shoulder, the men first set the push car off, and then turned the motor car around by lifting up the back end and swinging it around. In order to set the push car back on the rails behind the motor car, it was necessary to move the motor car up on the highway, and this was done. The push car was then set back on the rails, and Threadgill began re-coupling the two cars.

With the heavy lifting and pushing done, the foreman sent the other two employees out to flag traffic. They did not get very far1 before a car approached from the north. The driver apparently saw the workmen, for the car slowed down. The appellee Haymes soon followed, however, going at a speed in excess of sixty miles an hour. He did not see either the workers or the motor car and push car until he swung his automobile out to pass the first automobile. By this time, it was difficult to stop his car short of the crossing. He applied his brakes, skidding off the road, and then took his foot off the brake in order to get back oh the road and avoid hitting a fence. At this point the flagman and the foreman both jumped out of the way, the foreman shouting to Threadgill to look Out. Threadgill, who was engrossed in putting the pin back in the coupling, saw or heard nothing until Haymes’ automobile crashed into the motor car and push car, throwing him to the pavement and causing him severe injuries.

He brought suit thereafter against the railroad under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., and the railroad impleaded Haymes and his employer, the Nunn Electric Supply Co. The case was tried to a jury, whose verdict was in the form of answers to special questions propounded to it.2

[310]*310The ’jury found that Haymes at the time of the accident was driving his automobile in excess of sixty miles an hour, that he was driving his automobile faster than a person of ordinary prudence would have done, and that such negligent operation was a proximate cause, but not the sole proximate cause, of the collision. It found that the section foreman failed to keep as good a watch as would have been done under all the circumstances by a person of ordinary prudence, and that such negligent failure of the section foreman to keep a proper lookout for road traffic was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. It also found that the plaintiff Threadgill failed to keep such lookout for his own safety as would have been observed by a person of ordinary prudence under all the attending circumstances, and that such negligence was a proximate cause of the injuries he sustained in the collision.

On the question of damages, the court instructed the jury that in a case of contributory negligence the plaintiff’s recovery against the railroad would not be barred but would be reduced to the degree that his negligence contributed to' his injuries. It also instructed that the rights between Threadgill and Haymes and the Nunn Electric Supply Co. were governed by Texas law, under which the plaintiff’s contributory negligence would [311]*311defeat his suit altogether. Under these instructions, and after making the findings noted above, the jury assessed the plaintiff’s damages at $5500. The court accordingly entered judgment in plaintiff’s favor for this amount plus interest and costs, against the railroad. It decreed that the railroad take nothing by its third party complaint against Haymes and the Nunn Electric Supply Co., and that Haymes and the Nunn Electric Supply Co. take nothing by its counterclaim against the railroad. The railroad appeals.

The contentions of the railroad are twofold: first, that the jury finding that Haymes’ negligence was not the sole proximate cause of Threadgill’s injuries was erroneous as inconsistent with its other findings and against the weight of the evidence; second, that even if the railroad’s liability is admitted, it is nevertheless entitled to indemnity or contribution from Haymes or his employer.

On the first point, it is settled Texas law that questions of causation, like questions regarding the reasonableness of the acts from which damaging results flow, are jury questions, and therefore these jury findings cannot be set aside unless they are so clearly erroneous that reasonable minds could not differ in reaching a different result. City of Amarillo v. Copeland, 5 Cir., 218 F.2d 49. The railroad argues that its workmen being on the highway was only a condition and not a cause of the accident. This is actually immaterial to the main issue here, for the negligence of the railroad upon which the plaintiff’s recovery is based was that of the foreman in failing to keep a proper lookout for road traffic. When both the foreman and the flagman, by keeping a lookout for themselves, were able to escape injury, it is almost a certainty that by the exercise of reasonable care in looking out for Threadgill’s welfare as well, they could also have saved him from injury. In rebuttal to this, the railroad contends that the foreman had no duty to provide a lookout for his men, because he had a right to expect that all traffic would stop when it approached them. This contention is buttressed by reference to a Texas statute, Art. 6701d, § 86(d), Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes, which provides that when a person driving a vehicle approaches a grade crossing, he is required to stop when “[a]n approaching train” —which is required by Art. 6371 to ring a bell and blow a steam whistle when it comes within 80 rods of a crossing— “is plainly visible and is in hazardous proximity to such crossing.” Quite aside from the question of whether the motor car and push car were here “plainly visible” within the meaning of the Texas statute, the analogy between this apparatus and a train is, at least under these circumstances, plainly inapposite. The rights and duties imposed upon the railroad must therefore be resolved by the common law of Texas, and we are cited to no authority which holds that when his men are working on a public highway, an employer is under no duty to provide a lookout or warning for traffic. Such a contention is plainly untenable, and the jury finding that the foreman failed to act as a person of ordinary prudence would under the circumstances was properly accepted by the district court.

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Bluebook (online)
228 F.2d 307, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ft-worth-denver-railway-company-v-claude-threadgill-and-e-j-haymes-ca5-1956.