Haskins v. Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co.

89 S.W.2d 831
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 9, 1935
DocketNo. 4515.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 89 S.W.2d 831 (Haskins v. Panhandle & S. F. Ry. 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
Haskins v. Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co., 89 S.W.2d 831 (Tex. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

HALL, Chief Justice.

Plaintiff, Haskins, appellant here, sued the Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway Company in Hockley county to recover damages resulting from personal injuries sustained by him in a fall from one of defendant’s passenger coaches at the railway station in Levelland.

He alleges: That on February 8, 1935, while riding as a passenger, he alighted at the front of the train in Levelland, and, having left his pocketknife in the train coach, immediately requested the conductor to get it for him but the conductor instructed him to re-enter the train and get it himself. When he alighted the first time and then re-entered, the footstool was upon the ground and was used by him in alighting from and re-entering the coach. That, as he attempted to alight-the second time, the. footstool was tossed into the train hitting him on the leg, causing him to fall directly to the ground. His allegation is that one of the defendant’s servants or employees threw the stool. He further alleges that the defendant was negligent in the following respects:

(1) In failing to render to plaintiff the proper care and caution due him under the circumstances as set out above.

(2) The said employee failed to assist him in coming down the steps, as was their custom and as he had done immediately prior thereto upon his first exit from the coach.

(3) Defendant was negligent in failing to leave the stool upon the ground for plaintiff’s use, knowing that he was coming out immediately.

(4) In throwing said stool into the vestibule where, with the use of proper care and caution, the defendant, through its agent, knew or should have known that the plaintiff would be at the time with the purpose of descending said steps.

(5) Defendant was negligent in failing to keep a'lookout for the plaintiff’s return from inside the coach to descend the steps.

*832 (6) The defendant was further negligent through its agent in failing to look before he threw said stool into the vestibule to ascertain if plaintiff was in the vestibule and ready to descend.

(7) The defendant was further negligent through its agent as aforesaid in failing to exercise the proper caution in serving its passenger, the plaintiff, and assisting him to alight from said train in the usual, regular, and customary manner, and in striking the plaintiff with said stool just as he turned in the vestibule to descend said steps.

No question is made as to the sufficiency of any material part of the petition. Plaintiff describes minutely how he fell and the injuries which he sustained.

The defendant company answered by general demurrer, general denial, and several affirmative defenses.

At the conclusion of the evidence, the defendant moved the court for a peremptory instruction in its favor. This motion was granted, and, from a verdict and judgment entered denying plaintiff any recovery, this appeal is prosecuted.

The plaintiff presents the case here upon three propositions. By the first he challenges the action of the court in peremptorily directing a verdict against him because he alleged that an employee of the company threw a stool in his way as he descended from the railroad coach as a passenger, striking him and causing him to fall, which resulted in injuries and damages, and that such act was negligent and the proximate cause of his injuries, and the evidence introduced in his behalf-raised the issues of negligence, proximate cause, and damages.

By the second proposition" he insists that the court erred in peremptorily instructing the jury because plaintiff pleaded, in substance, that defendant violated its duty to keep a lookout for him as he descended from its train upon which he was a passenger, and in failing to caution plaintiff as a passenger and in failing to leave the footstool upon the ground for his descent, and that such negligence was the proximate cause of his fall and injuries, and because the evidence was sufficient to raise each of the issues pleaded.

By the third proposition he insists that, because of the proper legal presumptions and inferences deducible from the direct evidence tending to show a right to recover, it was plainly within the province of the jury to determine whether defendant’s agent threw the stool into the train at the time he was about to descend, and, because the issues of proximate cause and damages were raised by ample testimony, the jury should have been permitted to pass upon the issues.

The appellee insists that, in the light of all the testimony, there was no room for ordinary minds to differ as to the conclusion to be drawn from it, that the evidence raised no issue which should have been submitted to the jury, and therefore the court did not invade the province of the jury when, viewing the evidence as a whole, he concluded it was insufficient to require him to submit the issues to the jury.

We think the court erred in directing a verdict.

In determining whether a peremptory instruction should be given, only the testimony supporting plaintiff’s claim should be given consideration. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Cunningham, 118 Tex. 607, 23 S.W.(2d) 343, 352; Jones v. Jones (Tex.Civ.App.) 41 S.W.(2d) 496.

In Frazier v. Hanlon Gasoline Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 29 S.W.(2d) 461, 471, it is said: “In passing upon a motion for an instructed verdict, the court cannot weigh the evidence, but is bound to consider to be true all evidence which supports the view of the losing party, and it must give him the benefit of all legitimate inferences which are to be drawn therefrom in his favor. It is the rule that the court must give the evidence its strongest probative force. Clutter v. Wisconsin Texas Oil Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 233 S.W. 322 (error refused).”

To the same effect is the holding of this court in the Jones v. Jones Case, and, as supporting the rule, Judge Jackson cites Roddy et al. v. Citizens’ State Bank (Tex. Civ.App.) 11 S.W. (2d) '652; Willis & Conner v. Turner (Tex.Civ.App.) 25 S. W.(2d) 642; Henry v. Publix Theatres Corporation (Tex.Civ.App.) 25 S.W. (2d) 695; Henderson v. Burkholder (Tex.Civ. App.) 29 S.W. (2d) 937.

In the Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Cunningham Case, supra, the certificate from the Court of Civil Appeals set out at length the testimony of various witnesses bearing upon the questions certified. From this testimony Judge Short concluded that it was sufficient to raise the issue of discover *833 ed peril, and said: “If the evidence embraced in the certificate, viewed in the most favorable light, substantially supports the material allegations on this subject, in the petition of the appellees then question No. 1 must be answered in the affirmative.”

Question No. 1 in the certificate is: “Is there any evidence raising the issue of discovered peril?”

In the light of these declarations, we will briefly set out some of the testimony bearing upon the several issues.

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Bluebook (online)
89 S.W.2d 831, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/haskins-v-panhandle-s-f-ry-co-texapp-1935.