Ornelas v. Moore Service Bus Lines

410 S.W.2d 919, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2808
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 28, 1966
Docket5807
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 410 S.W.2d 919 (Ornelas v. Moore Service Bus Lines) 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
Ornelas v. Moore Service Bus Lines, 410 S.W.2d 919, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2808 (Tex. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

OPINION

FRASER, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of El Paso County, Texas. The case was submitted to the jury against both parties defendant, and the jury returned a verdict in the sum of $48,000.00 against the defendant Raymond Zavala, and no finding of negligence on the part of the defendant Moore Service Bus Lines. This appeal is directed against the jury’s findings in connection with the appellee Moore Service Bus Lines, and the judgment rendered by the court.

The controversy involves a bus injury suit in which appellant Irma Ornelas Sanchez, a minor at the time of the injury, was a passenger in a bus operated by ap-pellee, Moore Service Bus Lines. The said bus was involved in a collision with a station wagon driven by defendant Raymond Zavala. The appellant, Irma Ornelas Sanchez, alleges that she was seriously injured at the time of the collision. The action was filed by appellant Irma Ornelas Sanchez, who was joined by her husband, Gilbert Sanchez, and Zacarías Ornelas, who filed this suit as next friend of Irma Ornelas when she was a minor, and before her marriage.

The case was submitted to the jury against'both defendants.

It appears that this accident happened April 28, 1962, at about five P.M., on Ala-meda Avenue, which is one of the more heavily traveled streets of El Paso. According to a witness, Mrs. Wade, who was driving her passenger car a short distance ahead of the bus, the station wagon, driven by defendant Raymond Zavala, was approaching on the wrong side of the avenue and she, Mrs. Wade, began stopping her car when she saw Zavala’s car crossing the highway. She further stated that she assumed that he, for some reason, was cutting off the highway on the wrong side, but as she watched, she saw him go to the shoulder of the highway to her right, and then back across and straight into the path of the bus at a speed of about 40 to 50 miles per hour. She states that the distance between the collision and the place where she stopped her car was about a block. Her testimony is further illustrated in defendant Moore Service Bus Lines Exhibit No. 6. The red line thereon, which is almost a half-moon, shows the path of the Zavala car as it came down on the wrong side of Ala-meda Avenue. At the time of the accident there were two yellow lines down the middle of the avenue, and Zavala is first noticed as he was approaching from the west to the east on the inside lane, which is the lane next to the yellow stripes on the northerly half of the street which, of course, was on the wrong side of the avenue for him while traveling in the direction he was going. As Mrs. Wade’s testimony indicates, the line shows Zavala made an abrupt left turn, going farther across the wrong side of Ala-meda and clear out and onto the shoulder. *921 Then he turned back to his right and across the outer lane of Alameda and struck the bus head-on in the inside lane of the northerly part of Alameda Avenue. Mrs. Wade said she saw the entire occurrence and, as stated, when she first saw Zavala cutting across the street in front of her, assumed that he was going across and off the highway to some destination on that side; but as she watched, he reversed his direction, came back on to the highway, and struck the bus. It is obvious from her testimony and the exhibits that during this entire time Zavala was never on the right side of the street, as will appear from Exhibit 6. Another witness, Chavez, who was a passenger in the bus, described the accident just about as Mrs. Wade told it, and he further stated that the Zavala car was going very fast. The passenger in Zavala’s car was killed, and Zavala was unable to remember anything except that he had been to a drinking party the night before, had returned to his work at around four o’clock in the morning; then, several hours later, went to Zaragosa, Mexico to drink some beer. He claims not to have remembered anything.

The driver of the appellee’s bus testified that he had been on the outside, or northern-most lane of Alameda Avenue, but, as he approached the intersection of Carolina and Alameda, he looked in the mirror and began turning into the inner lane, which would be the lane nearest the double stripe, so that when he arrived at the intersection he could make a left turn into the Cedar Grove area. He says that he looked in his rear mirror and had made his change of lanes, when he saw Zavala approaching. He stated, also, that Zavala was driving his car at about 40 to SO miles per hour; that he, the bus driver, applied his brakes slowly, but could not make any safe turn to avoid the collision and was unable to do anything other than he did, and that he didn’t have time to warn the passengers. His testimony indicates that the entire accident happened so fast, and the right turn of the Zavala car was so sudden and unexpected, that he was unable to take any effective preventive measures with the bus he was driving. The picture or photographs taken show that the Zavala car drove headlong into the bus, and it is in evidence that the driver of the bus had to be removed by the use of a blowtorch.

Plaintiff bases her claim on the assertion that the bus driver did not warn her in time for her to take hold of anything; that she was injured by being suddenly propelled forward into and against the coin box, and that such propulsion of her body was caused by the bus driver applying his brakes suddenly and improperly.

The jury found that the driver of the bus did not fail to timely apply his brakes and did not fail to exercise proper care in warning appellant of the impending collision, and that the bus driver was acting under an emergency immediately prior to the collision. The jury, after acquitting the bus driver of any negligence, found defendant Zavala, the driver of the station wagon, guilty of driving on the wrong side of the street and that such was negligence and a proximate cause of the accident; that he operated his automobile at a rate of speed in excess of ordinary prudence and care under the circumstances there present, and that such was a proximate cause of the collision; and lastly, the jury found that reasonable compensation for plaintiff and her father would be $48,000.00.

Appellants maintain that the District Court was in error in refusing to grant a judgment N.O.V. with respect to Special Issues 3 and 4, which relate to appellants’ claim that the driver of the bus failed to properly warn Irma Ornelas Sanchez of the impending collision; also, that the District Court committed error in not granting appellants’ motion to set aside the verdict on Special Issues 1 and 2, which relate to the finding by the jury that the driver did not timely fail to apply his brakes at the time of the collision; also, that the court erred in not granting a directed verdict as to Special Issue 5, which issue was answered by the *922 jury to the effect that immediately prior to the collision the bus driver was acting under an emergency.

We believe that these matters which are brought up by appellants’ first three points of error do not reflect error on the part of the trial court. The statement by appellant, that there was no evidence contrary to her position that her injuries resulted from the negligent failure of the bus driver to timely warn her and to timely apply his brakes, cannot be sustained. The bus driver himself testified that he had no time to warn anyone, and that he was applying his brakes carefully at the time of the collision.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
410 S.W.2d 919, 1966 Tex. App. LEXIS 2808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ornelas-v-moore-service-bus-lines-texapp-1966.