Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hamilton

251 S.W. 597, 1923 Tex. App. LEXIS 197
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 23, 1923
DocketNo. 2721.
StatusPublished

This text of 251 S.W. 597 (Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hamilton) 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
Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hamilton, 251 S.W. 597, 1923 Tex. App. LEXIS 197 (Tex. Ct. App. 1923).

Opinion

WILLSON, O. J.

(after stating the facts as above). The petroleum company does not deny that the driver of the truck was guilty of negligence as shown in the findings of the jury, but insists, if he was and his negligence was a proximate cause of the collision, it nevertheless was not liable as determined by the judgment. The insistence is based on testimony showing it to be a common-law trust, joint-stock association or partnership that it was not a common carrier of goods or passengers, and that the truck was used by it for the purpose alone of conveying its own goods to its customers. It urges the fact that a cause of action for the death of Hamilton did not exist against it at common law, and asserts that it was not within the terms of the statute creating a cause of action for damages for the death of a person.

Prior to 1913, when an attempt was made to amend it by the act approved April 7, 1913 (Gen. Laws, p. 288 [Vernon’s Sayles’ Ann. Civ. St. 1914, art. 4094]), entitled “An act to amend article 4694 of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1911, giving cause of action where injuries resulting in death is caused by the negligence of a corporation, its agents or servants, and declaring an emergency,” the statute was as follows:

“Art. 4694. An action for’actual damages, on account of injuries causing the death of any person may be brought in the following cases:
“1. When the death of any person is caused by the negligence or carelessness of the proprietor, owner, charterer, hirer, of any railroad, steamboat, stage coach, or other vehicle for the conveyance of goods or passengers, or by the unfitness, negligence or carelessness of their servants or agents; when the death of any person is caused by the negligence or carelessness of the receiver or receivers or other person or persons in charge or control of any railroad, their servants or agents, and the liability of receivers shall extend to cases in which the death may be caused by reason of the bad or unsafe condition of the railroad or machinery, or other reason or cause by which an action may be brought for damages on account of injuries, the same as if said railroad were being operated by the railroad company.
“2. When the death of any person is caused by the wrongful act, negligence, unskillfulness, or default of another.”

The material change proposed in the amendatory act was the addition of the words “person or corporation, their agents or servants,” after the word “another” in the second clause of the statute so as to make the same read as follows:

“2. When the death of any person is caused by the wrongful act, neglect, unskillfulness or default of another person or corporation, their agents or servants.”

The petroleum company, though a common-law trust, joint-stock association or partnership, as asserted, was a “person,” and therefore liable for the conduct of its agents and servants, within the meaning of the second clause, set out above, of the amendatory act. It does not contend that it was not, but insists that the amendatory act was inoperative and void so far as it undertook to create a liability on the part of a person for the conduct of his agents or servants, because obnoxious to the provision in section 35 of article 3 of the Constitution that “no bill * * * shall contain more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” A like contention was made in Rodgers v. Tobias, 225 S. W. 804, and was upheld by the Court of Civil Appeals for the First District. The Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of error in that case, and the holding was followed by the Court of Civil Appeals for the Eighth District in Anderson v. Smith, 231 S. W. 142, and by the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fourth District in Oberstone v. Armendariz, 244 S. W. 644, and was approved by this court in Schaff v. Merchant, 250 S. W. 465, decided April 11, 1923, and not yet (officially) reported.

Assuming, as we do, that the ruling in the Tobias Case was correct, if follows that if the petroleum company was liable for the damages recovered against it, it was only *599 because the truck was a “vehicle for the conveyance of goods” within the meaning of those words as used in the first clause of the statute.

It was not disputed in the testimony that the truck was a “vehicle for the conveyance of goods” and that it was being used for that purpose at the time the collision occurred. The contention is that the vehicle referred to in the statute was one used by a common carrier in his business as such, whereas the truck in question was intended for use and was used for the purpose alone of conveying goods of the petroleum eom.pany to its customers. Several cases are cited by the petroleum company as supporting its view of the statute, and the opinions in some of ,them contain expressions which do support it. But "in none of the number, unless Bank v. Hanks, 104 Tex. 320, 137 S. W. 1120, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 368, and Pulon v. Packing Co. (C. C.) 182 Fed. 356, are exceptions, was the court called upon to determine the question with reference to facts liké those in this case. In the Hanks Case an elevator used in a six-story office building to convey passengers was held not to be a vehicle within the meaning of the statute, and in the Pulon Case it was held on the authority of the Hanks Case, mainly, that a large wagon owned by the packing company was not such a vehicle. In the Hanks Case the Supreme Court, applying the rule known as the “ejusdem generis rule,” that “where, in a statute, general words follow a designation of particular subjects or classes of persons, the meaning of the general words will be restricted by the particular designation in such statute,” concluded-that the phrase “or other vehicle for the conveyance of goods or passengers” should be construed as if it read, “or other like vehicles,” etc. After expressing ■doubt whether there was a passenger elevator in use in Texas in 1860, when the statute was enacted, the court said they thought it was meant “to apply to agencies and carriers transporting passengers and freight from some point of origin to some more or less distant point of destination. This is- of -necessity applied in every act of carriage of freight or passengers by either railroad, steamboat or stagecoach. In the nature of things, their engagements and works of transportation never contemplated a mere journey from one story of a building to another, and to us it seems dear that when the Legislature used the term ‘other vehicle’ it meant a vehicle performing, substantially at least, the same office and serving the same necessities.” Whatever force the reasoning of the court ha's when applied to an elevator, we think it has none when applied to an automobile truck like the one in question here. The truck was used by the petroleum company in carrying goods like a railroad, steamboat, and stagecoach carries them; that is, “from some point of origin to some more or less distant point of destination.” The truck in the usevmade of it, therefore, was a vehicle like a railroad, steamboat, and stagecoach, and, unlike an elevator, was not excluded as a “vehicle” within the meaning of the statute by the rule of ejusdem generis applied by the court in the Hanks Case. The Pulon Case was more like the instant one, but in that case it did not affirmatively appear, as it does in this one, that the vehicle was used to carry either goods or passengers. Sid Westheimer Co. v. Piner, 240 S. W.

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Related

St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. v. Hynson
109 S.W. 929 (Texas Supreme Court, 1908)
Sullivan-Sanford Lumber Co. v. Watson
155 S.W. 179 (Texas Supreme Court, 1913)
Lodwick Lumber Co. v. Taylor
87 S.W. 658 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1905)
Oberstone v. Armendariz
244 S.W. 644 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1922)
Schaff v. Merchant
250 S.W. 465 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1923)
Rodgers v. Tobias
225 S.W. 804 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1920)
Anderson v. Smith
231 S.W. 142 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1921)
Farmers' & Mechanics' National Bank v. Hanks
137 S.W. 1120 (Texas Supreme Court, 1911)
Sid Westheimer Co. v. Piner
240 S.W. 985 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1922)
Eames v. T. & N. O. R'y Co.
63 Tex. 660 (Texas Supreme Court, 1885)
Pulom v. Jacob Dold Packing Co.
182 F. 356 (U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Texas, 1910)

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Bluebook (online)
251 S.W. 597, 1923 Tex. App. LEXIS 197, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/magnolia-petroleum-co-v-hamilton-texapp-1923.