Kirby Lumber Co. v. Boyett

221 S.W. 669, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 478
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 19, 1920
DocketNo. 518.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 221 S.W. 669 (Kirby Lumber Co. v. Boyett) 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
Kirby Lumber Co. v. Boyett, 221 S.W. 669, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 478 (Tex. Ct. App. 1920).

Opinion

HIGHTOWER, C. J.

Mrs. M. F. Boyett, surviving widow of J. W. Boyett, deceased, for herself, and also on behalf of four minor children of herself and said J. W. Boyett, filed this suit in the district court of Liberty county against the Kirby Lumber Company to recover damages because of the death of said J. W. Boyett, alleged to have been caused by negligence on the part of said defendant. The plaintiff recovered judgment, and defendant has appealed. We find in appellant’s brief a concise, but sufficient, statement of the contentions of the parties, which is accepted by appellee as being correct and sufficient, and we adopt it:

“In so far as this appeal is concerned, the material allegations of the plaintiffs’ petition may be stated succinctly, as follows:
“(a) That the deceased, J. W. Boyett, was at the time when he met his death walking in an easterly direction upon and along the tram railway .of the defendant, Kirby Lumber Company, in the village' of Lyric.
“(b) That that part of said tram track was customarily and habitually used as a pathway by employés of the Kirby Lumber Company, both when on and off duty, and by the public generally, and that the said J. W. Boyett was at the time making use of such pathway in pursuance of the consent and permission of the Kirby Lumber Company expressly and impliedly given to employés when on and off duty, and to the public generally, to make use of that portion of said tram track for a pathway.
“(c) That, while the said J. W. Boyett was so making use of said pathway, an engine of the defendant company, coming in a westerly direction over said track, ran into and over the said J. W. Boyett, and killed him.
“(d) That the death of said J. W. Boyett proximately resulted from negligence upon the part of the defendant, Kirby Lumber Company, its servants, agents, and employés, in that the said engine was then and there being carelessly and negligently operated, without having any headlight thereon, it being then after dark, and without having a proper and reasonable lookout, and without taking any other proper and reasonable precautions to discover persons who might be in a position of peril upon or about said tram at that point, and that the death of said J. W. Boyett was due to and proximately caused by the negligent failure of the defendant, its agents and employés, to have a proper headlight upon said engine, and to keep a reasonable loo'kout for and to* exercise ordinary care to discover that the said J. W. Boy-ett was in a position of peril.
“(e) That the said J. W. Boyett had been employed by the Kirby Lumber Company as hardwood foreman, and had been at work in that position during the day on which he was killed, but that, some time before he was struck by said engine and killed, his day’s labors had ended, and he was not on duty at the time said engine struck and killed him, and was not then engaged in the performance of his duties as an employé of the defendant, and that he was not killed in the course of his employment.
“The answer of the defendant Kirby Lumber Company, in so far as is material to be here stated, consisted of a general demurrer, a general denial, and plea of contributory negligence; it being alleged by the defendant that the said J. W. Boyett, at the time when he sustained injuries which resulted in his death, was guilty of negligence which contributed to cause his death, in that he was then and there lying upon the tram track of defendant, and was then and there in a state of intoxication, or was asleep upon said track, or, in any event, was lying upon the said track, and was unnecessarily there, with no reason for his being there, and on his way to no place at which he was required to be, and whether in an intoxicated condition, or unintoxicated, was guilty of negligence in being upon said track, and that, if he was walking upon said track, he could easily have seen and known and heard the engine which ran over and killed him as it was coming over said track, and he could just as easily and readily have walked on the side of the track, out of danger, as on the track between the rails where he was, and could have seen and known and heard the engine approaching, and could easily have gotten out of the way thereof, and that in being upon the said track under the circumstances, and in not removing himself out of the way of danger from the engine running over said track, he was guilty; of negligence which contributed to bring about the injuries which resulted in his death.”

The case was tried with a jury, and was submitted upon special issues, in answer to which the jury found:

(1) That the defendant was guilty of negligence in running and operating the engine which killed Boyett, without having any. headlight thereon:

(2) That such negligence on defendant’s part was a proximate cause of Boyett’s death.

(3) That Boyett was not guilty of contributory negligence.

(4) Tha.t at the time Boyett was killed he was not intoxicated.

(5) That just prior to and at the time when Boyett was run over and killed by the engine he was lying down on the deféndant’s tram track.

(6) That Boyett, by the exercise of ordinary care, could not have avoided being run ofer by defendant’s tram engine.

(7) That $15,000 would be a reasonable and fair compensation to plaintiffs as damages because of the death of said Boyett, and that Mrs. Boyett ought to have $7,000 of this amount, and the remainder should be equally divided between the four minor children.

Appellant, Kirby Lumber Company, is a corporation engaged in the manufacture and sale of lumber, and on the 8th day of Febru *671 ary, 1918, owned and operated a sawmill situated on its tram railway track in Liberty county about nine miles south of the town of Cleveland. Around this mill lived quite a number of appellant’s employés, working in different capacities, and most of them lived with their families in houses built upon premises belonging to appellant, but some of them boarded and lived in a boarding house on the premises. The deceased, J. W. Boye.tt, was in the employ of appellant as hardwood log scaler, or foreman and log scaler, and he performed his duties under his employment out in the woods on appellant’s tram track, some six or seven miles south of where the mill, boarding house, commissary, and dwelling houses were located; that is, at Lyric. This little village, Lyric, is generally referred to as the “Kirby Camp,” and will so be referred to hereinafter. The woods where Boyett performed his duties was commonly referred to and designated as the “front,” and we will use that term hereinafter. For the purpose of hauling logs from the “front” to the mill, and for the purpose of transporting its em-ployés from the camp to the “front,” appellant owned and operated upon its tram railway track several railroad steam engines, one of which would always be attached to one or more cabooses, which were used for the exclusive purpose of carrying the employés, deceased among them, from the camp to the “front” every morning, and then bringing them back from the “front” to the camp every evening. This engine and caboose would usually leave the Kirby camp about 6 o’clock each ' morning, and would, usually return about 7 or 7:30 o’clock irt' the evening. On the morning of February 8, 1918, J. W.

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Bluebook (online)
221 S.W. 669, 1920 Tex. App. LEXIS 478, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kirby-lumber-co-v-boyett-texapp-1920.