Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Nichols

198 S.W. 338, 1917 Tex. App. LEXIS 916
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 26, 1917
DocketNo. 211.
StatusPublished

This text of 198 S.W. 338 (Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Nichols) 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
Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Nichols, 198 S.W. 338, 1917 Tex. App. LEXIS 916 (Tex. Ct. App. 1917).

Opinion

KING, J.

This suit was tried in the district court of Montgomery county, the plaintiff alleging the following cause of action:

“(9) On or about April 22, 1914, plaintiff, her two little children and a boy about 14 years of age, went aboard defendant’s west-bound passenger train at Big Creek, where she contracted with defendant and its agents for passage to Timber and paid to them the fare demanded, whereby defendant became liable and bound to carry her to that place and let her off the train in safety.
“(10) At the time just mentioned, plaintiff’s children were 22 and 9 months of age, respectively. She had engaged the boy aforesaid to assist her out home with the children from Timber two miles, which she intended to walk in case the weather would permit; otherwise she intended to stay all night with friends in Timber, and go out home to her father’s next morning, either of which she could have done.
“(11) When plaintiff entered the train at Big Creek she was not a strong woman, but was as strong and healthy as was customary for her; she was not an invalid, but was afflicted with a nervous trouble known as shaking palsy that had been bothering her slightly for some time *339 thex-etofore; however such disease was not then such as caused her any perceptible physical pain or mental anguish, it being, nevertheless, such a disease of the nerves and muscles as was noticeable to herself and other persons, and such disease as was susceptible of being aggravated by excitement, disappointment, fear, or any other sort of mental worry and anguish, and such disease, when aggravated, as assists to promote mental anguish and physical pain, which disease was grievously aggravated and augmented by the negligence of defendant in the way and manner hereinafter complained of.
“(12) While making the trip from Big Creek to Timber plaintiff relied upon defendant _ to care for her and put her off the train at Timber according to its contract of carriage, but defendant breached the same, negligently failing to stop its train at that place, and by willfully carrying her on to Waukegan, a station six or eight miles distant from Timber; which breach of contract and wrong committed by defendant, its servants, agents, and employés, directly caused great injury and damage to accrue to plaintiff in the following manner:
“(13) When the train passed Timber without stopping plaintiff knew it, and, not knowing where she would be carried to, and not being able to see any of the trainmen whom she could request to stop the train, and being incumbered with the care of two little children, and being physically diseased as aforesaid, defendant’s said negligence and breach of contract caused her to become frightened and so generally excited that her nerves and muscles, in their already weakened condition, then and thei'e became completely shattered and incon-trollable, whereby she began to suffer much physical pain and mental anguish before she reached Waukegan, where she was put off the train, among strangers.
“(14) When she was put off the train at Waukegan, plaintiff was so scared, nervous, weak, and in such pain that she fell helpless to the ground while on the way from the depot to her place of lodging, and suffered great physical and mental pain continuously all night without sleep or rest as the direct result of said negligence.
“(15) The next morning plaintiff was transported to Timber free of charge by defendant, and, after reaching Timber, being in her scared and nervous and painful condition still, and being so weak mentally by reason of said excess of nervousness that she was incapable of taking care of herself by sound reason and judgment, and thinking as she did, in a delusion, that she must go home then at once at all hazards, she immediately set out to walk home, and did so.
“(16) Plaintiff went to bed when she reached home, and in a few hours became relieved of physical pain, but her nerves continued to be excited and beyond control to the extent that she could not do anything but lie in bed in a weakened but painless condition for over a week, since which time she has been able to walk about the house, but is not able to care for her children and dress them, which she did with ease before said injury, which injury has permanently augmented said disease.
“(17) After becoming relieved of physical pain, plaintiff nor her father, nor any one else at her home, apprehended that her life or health was in immediate danger; it appearing to her that rest was the principal thing she needed to restore her to her usual health again, wherefore she did not summon medical aid.
“(18) As a direct result of defendant’s negligence and breach of contract, plaintiff has suffered in the form and manner above described to her damage $2,500 -to recover which this suit is brought.”

The jury rendered a verdict in favor of appellee, Sophie Nichols, in the sum of $1,250, upon which judgment was entered, and from which the railway company appeals.

The trial court charged the jury to assess such damages, if any, as the plaintiff was entitled to recover, in such sum of money as would fairly and justly compensate her for such mental and physicial pain and anguish she might have suffered as the direct and proximate result of being carried by her station to the station of Waukegan, and further, that if the jury found from the evidence that plaintiff’s nervous complaint was aggravated and her mental and physical suffering was thereby augmented, and that such augmented mental and physical suffering was caused and produced alone by the wrongful act of the defendant in carrying plaintiff beyond her station to the station of Waukegan, she would have been entitled to recover for such augmented suffering, provided that such suffering was produced alone as the direct and proximate result and consequence of the wrongful act of the defendant in carrying plaintiff beyond her station to the station of Waukegan. This charge was objected to upon several grounds, one of the grounds being that it permitted the jury to award damages for mental and physical pain and anguish suffered by plaintiff by reason of being transported beyond the station of Timber, and on to the station of Waukegan, when such damages could not have been, and were not, in the contemplation of the parties at the time the contract of carriage was entered into, as likely to flow from a breach of said contract by so transporting plaintiff by the station of Timber, and because no evidence whatever is described by the record, charging defendant with notice or knowledge that so carrying plaintiff by her station of Timber to Waukegan would probably have the result of causing plaintiff to suffer the acute pain and great excitement and nervous condition as shown by plaintiff’s own evidence.

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Bluebook (online)
198 S.W. 338, 1917 Tex. App. LEXIS 916, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gulf-c-s-f-ry-co-v-nichols-texapp-1917.