Galbraith-Foxworth Lumber Co. v. Gerneth

66 S.W.2d 471
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 30, 1933
DocketNo. 12885.
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 66 S.W.2d 471 (Galbraith-Foxworth Lumber Co. v. Gerneth) 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
Galbraith-Foxworth Lumber Co. v. Gerneth, 66 S.W.2d 471 (Tex. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

LATTIMORE, Justice.

This is a suit for damages to the parents for injuries to a minor child some seven years of age suffered from having his foot caught in an open elevator on which the child was playing. Liability is sought to be established on the “turntable doctrine.”

The difficulty in declaring liability in the “turntable cases” has been to reconcile such liability with the rule that the liability to a trespasser is to not injure intentionally. This reconciliation has in different jurisdictions been made on various grounds. Probably all of them come under the statement made in some of'the cases that a person must not so use or enjoy his property as to unnecessarily interfere with the safety of another. Indian Refining Co. v. Mobley, 134 Ky. 822, 121 S. W. 657, 24 L. R. A. (N. S.) 497.

The rule of liability for negligence in maintaining an instrumentality unusually and particularly attractive to infants seems to be based upon the theory of an implied invitation. San Antonio Ry. v. Morgan, 92 Tex. 98, 46 S. W. 28; McCoy v. Texas Power & Light Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 239 S. W. 1105. This implied invitation exists because the *472 owner is presumed to have that Knowledge of the attraction thereto by an infant as a person of ordinary Intelligence situated as was the possessor of the instrumentality would have. If in such case a reasonable anticipation of the acts of an infant would have informed such possessor of the danger to such children, “it is the duty of every person to use due care to prevent injury to such persons.” Ft. Worth & D. C. Ry. v. Robertson (Tex. Sup.) 16 S. W. 1093, 1094, 14 L. R. A. 781; Hermes v. Hatfield Coal Co., 134 Ky. 300, 120 S. W. 351, 23 L. R. A. (N. S.) 724.

Such a theory of implied invitation is answered when the evidence shows that the particular child has been by the operator of the premises fully and repeatedly warned of the dangers thereof and taken oft the premises and told to stay away. The invitation has been canceled. It is said in North Texas Const. Co. v. Bostick, 98 Tex. 239, 83 S. W. 12, 14, “this duty would have been performed by warning the child of its danger, and by removing it from the room in which the machinery was in operation to a place of safety.” In that case the child returned, as in this case, within a few minutes and was injured. It was there held no liability existed. J. I. Case Co. v. Burns, 38 Tex. Civ. App. 412, 86 S. W. 65; Isbell v. Hayward Lumber Co., 47 Tex. Civ. App. 345, 105 S. W. 211.

This is a second appeal. On the first we reversed and rendered it, the opinion stating that no liability existed. A writ of error was granted and by order of our Supreme Court on the recommendation of the Commission of Appeals the case was ordered reversed and remanded to the trial court. The opinion of the Commission based its recommendation on errors in communication with the jury and said that the issue of liability was incorrectly decided by the Court of Civil Appeals. That opinion was not adopted by the Supreme Court. We are thus confronted by that cancer which has too long affected the body of judicial administration of the inferior courts of this state; adding uncertainty to the relations of our citizens, embarrassment to our officers, the lawyers, and inei’easing the volume of litigation. The opinion of the Commission as a predeeent is a nullity by statute. Article 1790, R. S. Not being expressly approved by the Supreme Court, it is said not to be authoritative. Stephens County v. Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Co., 113 Tex. 160, 254 S. W. 290, 29 A. L. R. 566. What a sophistry! Such opinions are prepared under the immediate supervision of the Supreme Court and the writers thereof daily advise with the justices of the Supreme Court. They are printed in the law ■books and cited as authority by the Supreme Court itself. When such an opinion ⅛ cited to our inferior courts, it is a reflection upon the judges thereon and the people who elected them to say, “You should not rely on such an opinion,” and yet we have no means of knowing whether it will be the law of any case. The love we have for the organized law of Texas and the reverence we have for its capstone, The Supreme Court, impels us to protest.

The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in tremendous preponderance is to settle the law. To give us, out of conflicting reason-ings of inferior courts, the true rule. Not only, not principally, to adjust the rights of the parties to the immediate suit, but rather to announce therein a rule by which our citizens and their descendants may avoid discord and avoid litigation. The people expect it and the lawyers demand it—not too loudly, lest they be thought disrespectful, but steadily in a voice continuously in the ears of those who are perhaps closer to them.

We take it therefore that we have no instructions from the Supreme Court other than that the evidence was not such on the former trial that the trial judge should have instructed a verdict for defendant.

It is not necessary for -us to set out again the facts. Substantially they are twice-told. Galbraith-Eoxworth Lumber Co. v. Gerneth (Tex. Civ. App.) 21 S.W.(2d) 67; Gerneth v. Galbraith-Eoxworth Lumber Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 36 S.W.(2d) 191. It should be added that the evidence shows that this child when previously removed from the lumber yard was not only found in the driveway, but in various other parts of that place of business. The child did not testify and the entire case of attraction is by circumstantial evidence. Whether it is our duty to go further or not, we are plainly of the opinion that the evidence is so overwhelmingly against the vei’dict that we must' set that verdict aside. Here is an elevator necessary to appellant’s business and operated like thousands of others. The appellee infant is warned repeatedly to keep out and of the dangers of playing in the yard; each time the child is by appellant removed from the lumber yard and started and watched on his way leaving the vicinity thereof. What price will the law exact of an industry to keep open? The child when last removed from the yard was playing near some dangerous glass. Must appellant put each-article of such merchandise under lock, or a forbidding locked gate at each entrance? This would make it impossible to carry on his business, would alienate his customers. He is not required to hire a guard, or a nurse. As far as this child is concerned, we cannot, believe the evidence justifies a finding of negligence in the operation of its elevator.

The court was requested and it refused to instruct the jury that the latter1 “could not assess damages for the pain and suffering of the boy after he became 21 *473 years of age.” We think this charge should have been given. The appellee’s evidence placed unqualifiedly before the jury the fact-that according to such evidence such pain and suffering would exist. The court in telling the jury what it might consider in assessing damages told the jury that same was exclusive. We are not prepared to say that we would reverse this case if this were the only error found, but we believe the charge' would be clearer and better guide the jury to a correct verdict with such charge given. It was so held in Galveston v. Barbour, 62 Tex. 172, 50 Am. Rep. 519.

The child when injured was quite small and at the date of the last trial was 11 years old. No concrete evidence was offered as to what his earnings in the future until. majority would have been. Probably none could have been.

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66 S.W.2d 471, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/galbraith-foxworth-lumber-co-v-gerneth-texapp-1933.