Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. of Texas v. Beasley

321 S.W.2d 938, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 1948
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 27, 1959
Docket3426
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 321 S.W.2d 938 (Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. of Texas v. Beasley) 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
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. of Texas v. Beasley, 321 S.W.2d 938, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 1948 (Tex. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinion

GRISSOM, Chief Justice.

In May, 1957, Kenneth Beasley and wife and their daughter, Patricia, went to Rotan to visit Mrs. Beasley’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Clay Eakins. Soon after they arrived, all of them went in an automobile driven by Mr. Eakins to near Breckenridge. Early on the return trip they encountered a fog. They stopped for a visit in Hamlin. About 2:30 a. m. they started to the Eakins’ home in Rotan but, in the edge of Hamlin, Mr. Eakins drove his automobile into the ninth car back of the *940 engine of a Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas train which was traveling over a crossing at about fifteen miles per hour. The driver was familiar with this crossing. Mr. and Mr. Eakins and Patricia Beasley died as a result of injuries sustained in the collision. The Beasleys sued said railroad company for damages caused by their injuries and the death of their daughter.

A jury found that the crossing was extra-hazardous at the time of the collision; that the railway company was negligent in failing to place flares or fuzees at the crossing and in failing to have a watchman at the crossing to give warning of the presence of the train on the crossing and that each was a proximate cause of the collision. It also found that Mr. Eakins was driving at an excessive rate of speed and that this was negligence but not the sole proximate cause of the collision. Based upon said findings, judgment was rendered for the Beasleys and the railroad company has appealed.

The defendant contends, among other things, that the crossing was not shown to be extra-hazardous, as a matter of law, and that the railroad company was not shown to be guilty of negligence, as a matter of law.

The cross-arm warning sign required by Article 6370, Vernon’s Ann.Civ. St. was on the south side of the crossing and plaintiffs approached the crossing from the north as defendant’s freight train was traveling over the crossing between plaintiffs and said sign. The defendant had no duty to give plaintiffs any other warning unless the crossing was extra-hazardous. Muniz v. Panhandle & Santa Fe Ry. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 285 S.W.2d 809, 816 (RNRE); Karr v. Panhandle & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 153 Tex. 25, 262 S.W.2d 925, 930. Defendant says the evidence shows conclusively that the area surrounding the crossing was level; that there was no obstruction to the view; that there was no ■evidence of an illusion which could lead plaintiffs or the driver to believe the crossing was not occupied; that there was no-distraction; that, although the highway crossed the railroad tracks at a slightly oblique angle, there was nothing in connection with the angle that could have affected the view of the train moving on the crossing. It says that under the decision in Karr v. Panhandle & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 153 Tex. 25, 262 S.W.2d 925, 931, no significance can be attached to the fact that the highway crossed the railroad track at a slight angle. We are constrained to agree with these contentions. As to these matters plaintiffs’ evidence, at most, only arouses a surmise of suspicion and in legal effect is no evidence. Joske v. Irvine, 91 Tex. 574, 44 S.W. 1059.

Defendant further says that the only limitation of visibility was created by fog and that plaintiffs must rely upon fog as proof of an extra-hazardous crossing and that under the decisions of our Supreme Court this cannot be done. In Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Compton, 135 Tex. 7, 136 S.W.2d 1113, 1114, our Supreme -Court, in an opinion by Judge Hickman, said:

“The material facts are few. About one o’clock at night Grover Carring-ton left Texas City in his automobile for Galveston. Charles Compton and others accompanied him on the trip. The night was dark and foggy and the visibility was poor. A few miles from Texas City the automobile ran into a slowly moving freight train and Compton’s death resulted from the collision. The highway ran over a flat prairie country, and in the vicinity of the intersection there was no trees, houses or other obstructions to the view. The highway and railroad track crossed at right angles. The train consisted of 87 cars, and the automobile struck the sixtieth car from the engine. The train was moving eight or ten miles per hour and the automobile much faster.
* * * * * *
*941 “Another ground relied upon was the failure of the railroad company to use extraordinary means to give warning, such as to equip its freight cars with lights and have same burning at night, to equip its crossing with signal bells or lights or to have a watchman stationed thereat. Negligence cannot be based upon such omissions, for the crossing mas not extra-hazardous, and therefore no duty was cast upon the railroad company to observe these extraordinary precautions. It would be difficult to conceive of a railroad crossing at which the hazards would be more obvious than at this one.”

The court assumed there was no cross-arm warning at the crossing and, therefore, the railway company, by virtue of violation of the statute, was guilty of negligence as a matter of law. It then held, as a matter of law, that such negligence was not a proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injttry because "if travelers on the highway could not see the moving cars * * * they could not have seen the sign.” In the Compton case the Court of Civil Appeals held that the trial court erred in instructing a verdict for the railway company and that the jury would have been authorized to find that it was moving its train over the crossing without lights on its cars on a dark, foggy night without extraordinary warning to those using the highway of the presence of the train on the crossing and that, therefore, the crossing was extra-hazardous and the railway company was negligent. As shown by the quotation above, our Supreme Court rejected that conclusion and held that the trial court properly instructed a verdict for the railway company.

Defendant says the Beasleys must rely upon fog alone and that this case cannot be distinguished from the Compton case. We do not understand that the Beasleys contend there was evidence of an illusion which caused them or their driver to believe the crossing was not occupied by defendant’s train, but, if they do, we find no support for such a conclusion. In Walker v. Texas & N. O. R. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 150 S.W.2d 853, 857 (Writ Dis.J.C.), the court said:

“After carefully reviewing the evidence we are forced to the conclusion that the only factor that was present which rendered the crossing rmore than ordinarily dangerous as a night-time crossing on the occasion in question’ was the fog. And it is settled that where the danger is caused by fog, and applies to all driving over a highway, inclusive of a railroad crossing, there is no duty placed on the railroad company to warn of danger arising because of fog. Texas & N. O. R. Co. v.

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321 S.W.2d 938, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 1948, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/missouri-kansas-texas-railroad-co-of-texas-v-beasley-texapp-1959.