Myers v. Cliff Hyde Flying Service, Inc.

325 S.W.2d 841, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2519
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 9, 1959
Docket13357
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 325 S.W.2d 841 (Myers v. Cliff Hyde Flying Service, Inc.) 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
Myers v. Cliff Hyde Flying Service, Inc., 325 S.W.2d 841, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2519 (Tex. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinion

WERLEIN, Justice.

This suit was originally brought for possession of an airplane which appellant had purchased from appellee, and which was damaged while appellant was taking advance flying instructions from appellee’s agent. Appellee repaired the damage but refused to surrender the plane to appellant until the costs of repairs were paid. After suit was filed, appellant, under protest, paid appellee for such repairs, and then amended his pleadings seeking to recover the amount so paid. On the findings of the jury, the Trial Court rendered judgment that appellant take nothing, from which judgment this appeal has been perfected.

Appellant complains of the Court’s refusal to submit five Special Issues covering negligent acts and omissions of appel-lee’s employee and agent, Goins. By his amended petition and first supplemental petition, ' appellant alleged five specific grounds of negligence on the part of Goins. To issues submitted, the jury found that the action of Goins in permitting the speed of the plane to be reduced below 100 miles per hour was not negligence; that his action in rapping on the air speed indicator was not negligence; that his failure to vocally tell appellant to “increase his power” was not negligence; that his failure to sooner take control of the plane was not negligence; that Goins was flying the plane immediately prior to the time it touched the ground; and that Goins did not fail to maneuver the plane properly after he began flying it. Appellant does not complain that the Court erred in submitting the issues given.

We think the Court properly refused to submit appellant’s requested Special Issues Nos. 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12. The Court fairly submitted the controlling issues raised by the pleadings and evidence. The requested Issues for the most part were merely different phases or shades of the Issues submitted. Rule 279, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Northeast Texas Motor Lines v. Hodges, 138 Tex. 280, 158 S.W.2d 487.

Furthermore, appellant, having pleaded specifically certain acts and omissions of negligence, was restricted thereto and cannot complain because the Court did not submit Issues based upon specific *844 acts or omissions which he did not plead. Jenkins v. Hennigan, Tex.Civ.App., 298 S.W.2d 905, writ ref., n. r. e.; Schodts v. American Hospital and Life Ins. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 313 S.W.2d 946, writ ref., n. r. e.; Story v. Partridge, Tex.Civ.App., 298 S.W.2d 662, writ ref., n. r. e. Moreover, the jury having found that appellant was negligent, any answers to the requested Special Issues, had they been submitted, would not have affected the Court’s judgment since contributory negligence on the part of appellant effectively barred his right to recover. Hence, any error on the part of the Court was not reasonably calculated to cause, nor did it probably cause, the rendition of an improper judgment. Rule 434, T. R. C.P.

Appellant’s Point 10 asserts that the Court erred in rendering judgment for ap-pellee since the evidence shows and the jury found that Goins was flying the plane at the time of the crash and that appellant did not fail to use the usual and customary means of bringing his air speed up when warned by Frank Goins that his air speed was getting too low just prior to the accident.

The jury did not find Goins negligent in any particular, but in answer to Special Issues 15, 16 and 17 found that appellant moved the control column of the airplane forward too rapidly and abruptly when warned by his instructor that his air speed was getting too low, and that such action was negligence, and a proximate cause of the accident.

On the flight in question, during which the accident occurred, appellant had taken off from the Sam Houston Air Port with Goins in the plane to instruct him. When they were about seven miles from a private air port in the vicinity of the Katy road, appellant set up a “long approach straight in.” He was instructed to glide the airplane at 100 miles per hour. When the airplane was down to about 300 feet from the ground, the air speed got down to about •95 miles per hour, whereupon Goins cautioned appellant that he was losing air speed and appellant thereupon brought the air speed back to 100 miles per hour. Appellant continued the normal approach until he got near or over the end of the runway, when he started slowing the air speed again, whereupon Goins brought the air speed to appellant’s attention by tapping again on the air speed indicator, thus telling him that his air speed was low. Appellant testified that after Goins tapped on the air speed indicator the second time, “It wasn’t too long after that we hit very hard.”

Goins testified that when appellant started slowing the air speed, he was about 20 feet from the ground, and when Goins cautioned him that his speed was getting low, appellant “immediately got the stick forward,” and that he just shoved the stick forward too far, and the aircraft suddenly went toward the ground. He further testified that “he went forward with the stick too fast and the airplane struck the ground before I could recover it.”

Appellant contends that the jury’s finding that he used the usual and customary means of bringing his air speed up when warned that it was too low, conflicts with the finding that appellant moved the control column of the airplane forward too rapidly and abruptly when warned by his instructor that his air speed was getting too low. We do not think there is any real conflict between such findings. The evidence showed that the speed of the airplane could have been increased in several different ways: (1) by lowering the nose, by releasing back pressure (moving the stick forward) ; (2) by adding more power, and (3) a combination of such means. Any of the three would have been proper. Both appellant and Goins testified that appellant did not add more power, but did lower the nose. That was using a proper means. Goins testified, however, that appellant moved the control column (which had the effect of lowering the nose) too fast and too suddenly, and such action caused the crash. The effect of the findings is that appellant did *845 use the usual and customary means of increasing the speed of the airplane, but he used such means in a negligent manner by moving the control column forward too rapidly and abruptly.

Further, we find no conflict in the jury’s findings concerning appellant’s act in moving the control column forward too rapidly and abruptly and the finding that ‘‘Goins was flying the plane immediately prior to the time it touched the ground.” Goins testified that he attempted to get the aircraft under control, after appellant’s abrupt and unexpected reaction, and further testified that he “was on the control before it hit the ground.” The jury found that Goins did not fail to maneuver the plane as an instructor pilot of ordinary prudence after he began flying the plane on the occasion in question. The jury was warranted in finding from the evidence that 'appellant’s negligent employment of the usual and customary means was what caused the accident.

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325 S.W.2d 841, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2519, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/myers-v-cliff-hyde-flying-service-inc-texapp-1959.