Greenway v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.

114 S.W.2d 435, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 934
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 25, 1938
DocketNo. 1704.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 114 S.W.2d 435 (Greenway v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea 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
Greenway v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 114 S.W.2d 435, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 934 (Tex. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

GRISSOM, Justice.

This is a companion case to Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Walker, Tex.Civ.App., 104 S.W.2d 627; Walker v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., Tex.Sup., 112 S.W.2d 170.

In this case, J. L. Greenway, for and ort behalf of himself ánd his wife, and as next -friend of his two minor sons, sued the defendant for damages, alleged to have been caused by ptomaine or food poisoning, suffered by plaintiffs as a result of eating canned corn, sold by the defendant to Hoyt Walker. The answer of the jury on controlling questions was in favor of the defendant. Judgment was entered for the defendant, from which judgment plaintiffs have appealed.

Special issue No. 4, and the jury’s answer thereto, are as follows: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant herein, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, failed to use ordinary care to avoid putting on the market for sale canned corn unfit for human consumption as food ? Answer: It did not fail to use ordinary care.” Plaintiffs' motion requesting the court to instruct a verdict, except as to the ¿mount of damages, was refused. Plaintiffs, by their assignments of error, contend: (a) That the evidence relative to issue No. 4 was insufficient to warrant the submission thereof to the jury; (b) that the answer of the jury is without evidence to support it; and (c) that the finding of the jury is so contrary to the great weight and preponderance of the- evidence as to be clearly wrong.

Mr. Call, manager of defendant’s purchasing department for the Dallas unit, which included the Baird store where the corn was sold, testified that the canners from whom the defendant purchased corn enjoyed a good reputation. “That they are reputable concerns.” That they have “very good standings.” He testified that the can-ner of the particular corn purchased by Walker was the Keene Canning Company; that its general reputation was good; that it was a reputable manufacturer and processor. He further testified that when a car of canned corn was purchased and shipped to the Dallas warehouse, upon its arrival he instructed the employees to bring several cans from different parts of the car; that *436 the cans were opened; that he smelled and tasted the corn from such cans and inspected it to ascertain if it contained foreign elements; that the corn was then placed on the third floor of the company’s warehouse, the third floor not being the top floor of the warehouse, where the temperature remained fairly even. There was also testimony to the effect that at the Baird store, where the corn in question was sold, the local manager and his wife inspected the cans when they were placed on the shelves for sale, and again when it was sold and wrapped for the customer and paid for. That the temperature in the retail store was kept “about normal.” That the manager, or his wife, handled every can at least twice; that the canned goods were inspected; that if a “rusty or a can that was swollen or a can that is leaky” is found the can is punctured and separated from the stock exposed for sale. We think with such testimony in the record it cannot be said that it was shown, as a matter of law, that the defendant failed to use ordinary care in the particular mentioned in issue No. 4, or, in other words, that negligence, as a matter of law, is shown. If we are correct in this conclusion, the opinion might well end here for the reason that if the finding of the jury that the defendant was not negligent is sustained by the evidence, then the plaintiffs cannot recover and the judgment should be affirmed. However, we shall briefly discuss the other contentions presented.

Special issue No. 3 and the answer thereto are as follows: “Do you find from a preponderance om the evidence in this case that the canned corn purchased by Hoyt Walker from the defendant herein, the Great .Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, was unwholesome and unfit for human consumption as food? Answer: No.” In answer to special issues Nos. 13, 14, 15, and 16, the jury found that eating the corn in question was not the proximate cause of the plaintiffs’, illness. In answer to issue No. 17 the jury found that plaintiffs’ illness was proximatcly caused by other food than the •corn in question. With reference to the answers to questions Nos. 3 and 17, plaintiffs assign 'as error: (a) That the evidence with reference thereto is insufficient to warrant submission of said issueS to the jury; (b) that the findings of the jury in answer to said issues are without evidence to support them; and (c) that the findings of the jury in answer to said issues are so contrary to the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong. Plaintiffs also assign as error the action of the court in overruling plaintiffs’ motion for a peremptory instruction.

It must be remembered that the evidence as to what was eaten, etc., immediately preceding the illness of the plaintiffs and the Walkers, came from the plaintiff, Mr. Greenway, and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Walker, plaintiffs in a companion case against the same defendant, involving the same can of corn. By process of elimina-. tion plaintiffs attempted to show that the corn was necessarily the article eaten that caused their illness. In other words, they attempted to show that alj of the members of both families became ill immediately after the dinner at which this corn was served; that all of the sick persons ate corn; and that some of the persons who became sick failed to eat each of the articles other than corn served on that occasion.

In Pope v. Beauchamp, 110 Tex. 271, 280, 219 S.W. 447, 450, our Supreme Court said: “Bearing in mind the rule clearly enunciated by this court, speaking through Judge Brown, in the case of Houston, E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Runnels, 92 Tex. [305] 307, 47 S.W. [971] 972, that ‘it is the province of the jury to pass upon the credibility of the witnesses, and they may disregard the testimony of a witness who has neither been impeached nor contradicted, if they believe his statements to be untrue from his manner of testifying, prejudice exhibited towards the opposite party, or his interest in the result of the litigation, or other things indicating that the evidence is not reliable/ we have concluded that it was a question of fact, for the jury to determine, as to whether plaintiff in error was a bona fide holder of the note. See, also, Pridgen v. Walker, 40 Tex. [135] 136; Crosby v. Church, 45 Tex.Civ.App. 111, 99 S.W. [584] 587; Burleson v. Tinnin [Tex.Civ.App.] 100 S.W. [350] 351; First Nat. Bank of Ft. Wayne v. Howard [Tex.Civ.App.] 174 S.W. [719] 720.”

In Thraves v. Hooser, Tex.Com.App., 44 S.W.2d 916, 921, opinion by Justice Sharp, it was said: “The rule is now well settled in this state by the decisions of the Supreme Court that when a jury has been selected for the purpose of trying out the. facts of a case, it matters not how positive and uncontradicted the testimony of an interested party may be; the question of his credibility must be submitted to the jury.”

Also see Mills v. Mills, Tex.Com.App., 228 S.W. 919, 920; American Surety Co. *437 v. Whitehead, Tex.Com.App., 45 S.W.2d 958, 960; Stone v. Wylie, Tex.Com.App., 34 S.W.2d 842, 845; Moore v.

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114 S.W.2d 435, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 934, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/greenway-v-great-atlantic-pacific-tea-co-texapp-1938.