Kennedy v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas

192 S.W. 1114, 1917 Tex. App. LEXIS 174
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided February 10, 1917·No. No. 7662.·Published

Opinion

RAINEY, C. J.

Plaintiff sued to recover of defendant damages for personal injuries to him while employed by appellee as a fireman of an engine in operating a ditcher, while said ditcher was being transported from Greenville to Mineóla on its own road; that while he was reaching up to procure some waste to start a fire in said ditcher the train, while going over a defective track, made a sudden lurch which caused plaintiff to fall over a bar which produced hernia and otherwise injured him.

Defendant answered by general demurrer and general denial. A trial resulted before a jury in a verdict and judgment for defendant, from which appeal is taken.

The evidence pro and eon was introduced, and the assignments of error presented all relate to the admission and rejection of certain evidence.

The first is that the court erred in refusing to allow plaintiff to testify “that he could tell from the movement of the train when the car went down that he was on that there was a defect in the track at that point.” The plaintiff was an experienced railroad man, aDd was competent to answer the question propounded, but he had already stated that he thought there was a defect in the track, and his testimony in regard to the lurching of the car, and his testimony after going over the track and examining the point where he claimed to be hurt was such that his answer would have added nothing to the force of what he had already testified to, and therefore the error is harmless, and not reversible.

The second assignment relates to the exclusion of testimony of plaintiff on redirect examination as follows:

“Q. What was it you said about it fyeing customary for all men to do that went into service? A. The reason I done it, the railroad company, if you arc past a certain age, won’t take you sometimes, and you have got to make your age younger, as all of them do.”

*1115 Objection was made to that part of the answer which read “as all of them do.” The court sustained the objection and told the jury not to consider it. The witness was being questioned about his age, he having stated on cross-examination that when he made application for employment to defendant he had stated he was horn in February, 1885, when in fact he was born in 1879, and further:

“I put my age clown at that time in making the application to the railroad company the same as ail other men do.”

He had on cross-examination testified without objection to the same effect, and if the effect of the court’s ruling was to exclude the testimony in each instance, there was no error, because he stated, in effect, his reason to be that he would be more apt to secure employment by placing his age younger than he really was. What other men did in such cases was no excuse for him doing it, and was therefore immaterial, and not admissible. The court did not err in its ruling.

The third assignment of error relates to the admission of testimony of plaintiff “that he shot to death his own brother-in-law on the streets of Coalgate, Old..,” and, further, that the court erred in refusing to permit plaintiff to answer the following question:

“I will ask you if you didn’t beg him (meaning Baldy Bunch) to put up his pistol and go home?”

This assignment does not cite the bill of exception nor page of the record where it can he found. We have found no such bill, and therefore cannot pass upon it intelligently.

With the third assignment was grouped the fourth, fifth, and sixth assignments, and which are submitted together. The fourth complains of the refusal of the court to allow plaintiff to answer the following question:

“Q. I will ask you if you did not go to his home (meaning Baldy Bunch) that morning and get his wife to go after him and asked her to get him and get him off the streets?”

The fifth assignment complains of the court in not allowing plaintiff to testify:

“That Baldy Bunch was considered a desperado and^ that his general reputation in that community was that of a desperado.”

The sixth assignment complains of the court in not permitting plaintiff to answer this question:

“Q. I will ask you if while you were on the streets, you and the city marshal, in the performance of your duty as officers there, if this man while drunk didn’t pull his pistol and open fire on you and the city marshal?”

Under these assignments plaintiff submits the following proposition:

“The plaintiff on cross-examination by the defendant’s counsel being required to testify before the jury as_ follows: ‘I don’t know that 1 went to the penitentiary for killing my brother-in-law. Me and the city marshal was charged and convicted of killing my brother-in-law and given 6% years.’ It was admissible on redirect examination to show in explanation of his conduct with and connection with the killing of his brother-in-law that plaintiff was constable of Coalgate, and this his brother-in-law, Baldy Bunch, was drunk, had his pistol out, and that he went to him and begged Mm to put up his pistol and go home, and when ho wouldn’t do it he went to his brother-in-law’s home and got his wife to go after him and begged her to get him to go home off the streets; that Bunch was considered a desperado; that was his general reputation; and that, being drunk and having his pistol, he opened fire on plaintiff and the city marshal, and when the shooting was over he was lying on the ground dead or dying, and the plaintiff and the city marshal turned and walked to the sheriff and gave themselves up.”

The matter to which the grouped assignments relate, the killing of one Baldy Bunch at Coalgate, Old., was a collateral issue in this ease. From the statement of facts we find that on direct examination by his counsel plaintiff in the beginning of his testimony after giving his name, stated:

“I have not my pardon [from the penitentiary] with me; it is down at the house. * * * When I lived in Oklahoma I was hoisting engineer at the ‘Katy’ mines. I was elected constable of Coalgate in 1907, when Oklahoma came into statehood, and was constable about two years and resigned. It was in July, 1909, when I had that trial there. I was constable at the time this difficulty came .up; the-city marshal and I were together. No, sir; I didn’t get away or skip out.”

On redirect examination plaintiff testified:

‘Yes, sir; and when I was constable at Coal-gate it is true that Baldy Bunch was drunk and had his pistol out in the street, and he opened fire on me and the city marshal. It was in this shooting scrape he was killed. When the shooting was over he was lying on the ground dead or dying, and me and the city marshal turned and walked to the sheriff and give up.”

The testimony of plaintiff that he went to the home of Baldy Bunch to get Bunch’s wife to get him off the street, and that Bunch was a desperado, became immaterial in view of the fact that the evidence shows in relation to the killing that plaintiff acted in self-defense. While under sentence he never was confined in the penitentiary, but was out on parole and was finally pardoned by the Governor of Oklahoma.

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Kennedy v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas, 192 S.W. 1114, 1917 Tex. App. LEXIS 174 (Tex. Ct. App. 1917).

192 S.W. 1114 (Kennedy v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.