Kindle v. Armstrong Packing Co.

103 S.W.2d 471, 1937 Tex. App. LEXIS 434
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 4, 1937
DocketNo. 5076
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 103 S.W.2d 471 (Kindle v. Armstrong Packing 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
Kindle v. Armstrong Packing Co., 103 S.W.2d 471, 1937 Tex. App. LEXIS 434 (Tex. Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

WILLIAMS, Justice.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries growing out of a collision of two automobiles upon a highway in Smith county, tried to a jury, which resulted in judgment being rendered for defendant.

Plaintiff, Kindle, was riding in a Chevrolet coach with one Bullard who was driving this automobile, while one Edwards, an agent and employee of defendant, was operating a Plymouth coupé in the opposite direction, or to the north, when the two collided.

Plaintiff’s pleadings alleged specifically the various acts of defendant relied upon as negligence; Defendant’s pleadings consisted of a general demurrer, general denial, and pleaded specific acts of omissions and commissions on the part of plaintiff Kindle which caused or contributed to cause his injuries.

The jury found that defendant, Edwards, failed to keep a proper lookout, that this was negligence, and to special issue No. 4 the jury answered this was not a proximate cause of the injury; that Edwards was driving at an excessive and dangerous rate of speed, but this was not negligence; that Edwards was not driving on his left-hand side of the road.

On the issues of contributory negligence pleaded, the jury found that the car plaintiff was riding in was being operated on its left-hand side of the road; that plaintiff with knowledge of its being operated on the left-hand side- failed to direct and [472]*472request the driver not to so operate the car, but that such failure to direct and request was not contributory negligence; that the driver of the car plaintiff was riding in failed to keep a proper lookout, but that plaintiff was not guilty of contributory negligence in remaining in said car with knowledge that the driver was not keeping a proper lookout.

On other acts of negligence alleged Edwards was acquitted, and plaintiff was absolved of- contributory negligence on other specific acts alleged.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that no alleged act of negligence of defendant, Edwards, was found as the proximate cause of the injuries; and further that no alleged act of plaintiff, Kindle, was a contributing cause.

There were no pleadings which alleged that any of the acts of Bullard was negligence, nor a proximate or sole proximate cause of the injuries and none were submitted to the jury. The jury answered that it was not an unavoidable accident. They were instructed that “an unavoidable accident” is an occurrence which is not caused or contributed to by any negligence on the part of Edwards or any negligence on the part of plaintiff, Kindle, or Bullard, which caused or contributed to cause the occurrence.

It is asserted by appellant that the jury’s answer that the negligence of Edwards in not keeping a proper lookout was not a proximate cause of the injury is against the overwhelming weight of the evidence, and that this negative finding is irreconcilable and contradictory in that the jury found that plaintiff, Kindle, was npt guilty of contributory negligence, and that the collision was not an unavoidable accident. It is asserted, therefore, the court may assume the existence of, proximate cause as a matter of law because the defendant was found guilty of negligence and, as plaintiff was acquitted of contributory negligence, the negligence of defendant was the cause of the injury. In this contention, the acts and conduct of the driver Bullard is blotted out of the picture, and whether any of his acts was the sole or a proximate cause of the collision was wholly ignored in the trial of this case. Under the pleadings in this case, it was incumbent upon plaintiff to make his case. The. jury in this instant case found that Bullard failed to keep a lookout and that he operated his car upon the wrong side of the road. That his car being operated upon the wrong side of the road may have been in the minds of the jury a proximate cause of the 'collision. There is no conflict here.

As said by Judge Hickman in Jones v. Gibson (Tex.Civ.App.) 18 S.W.(2d) 744, 746:

“Nothing is better settled than that the question of whether an act of negligence was the proximate cause of an injury is a fact issue. * * * That question being a fact issue, then the general rule with reference to fact issues must be applied, and in order to justify the court in holding, as a matter of law, that a fact issue had been established to such an extent that same should not have been submitted to the jqry, the evidence must be such as that ordinary minds could not differ with respect thereto. * * *
“To our minds, a holding that, since the jury found the defendant negligent and the plaintiff not negligent, and since there is absent from the record evidence that the injuries were inflicted by some other agency or cause,' the question of proximate cause was thereby eliminated, is to practically do away with the well-established doctrine of proximate cause.”

See Owings v. Commerce Farm Credit Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 29 S.W.(2d) 871, for discussion of same issue raised here. 30 Tex.Jur. § 62, p. 723; Hutton v. Burkett (Tex.Civ.App.) 18 S.W.(2d) 740.

In McCoy v. Beach-Wittman Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 22 S.W.(2d) 714, 716, strongly relied upon by appellant, the jury found the negligence of the defendant and the driver of the other car in which plaintiff was riding were both a proximate cause of the injury. And with such facts, for one to escape liability it was incumbent upon him to show that the negligence of the other was the sole proximate cause of the injury. This situation was what Judge Jackson had in mind when he stated in that opinion: “It being uncon-troverted that the collision was the proximate cause of the injury, in order for ap-pellee Charles O. Mitchell to. defeat appellant’s right of recovery against him, it was incumbent for the testimony to show that the negligence of the driver of the car in which appellant was riding was the sole proximate cause of the injury; because, where two acts of negligence or two efficient causes contribute to an injury, and without the operation ol [473]*473each cause or each act of negligence the injury would not have occurred, each act of negligence or each efficient cause is a proximate cause.”

That the jury’s finding that defendant’s failure to keep a proper lookout was not a proximate cause of the injuries is against the overwhelming weight of the evidence is amply answered by the jury when they found that Bullard was on the wrong side of the road and drove the car at such rate of speed and in such manner as to endanger the life and limb of himself and other persons on the highway at the time of the collision.

The testimony supports the findings that Bullard’s car was on the wrong side of the road. Witness Dozier testified : “There were tracks all around between the Chevrolet and the embankment on the east side of the road. Those, tracks were on the east side of the road. I saw no tracks or scraped places on the west side of the road.”

The witness Bliss, one of the first' to the scene of the collision, testified: “There was plenty of glass and wreckage there east of the center of the road. I saw a scrape or track there at the point of the accident where they pushed in the road after the impact. Those marks were just to the east of the center of the road fronting the front wheels of the Plymouth. None of the injured parties had been removed from the cars when I arrived. I. noticed no marks on the west half of the road.”

Other witnesses testified to similar physical facts.

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Bluebook (online)
103 S.W.2d 471, 1937 Tex. App. LEXIS 434, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kindle-v-armstrong-packing-co-texapp-1937.