Parks v. Hines

314 S.W.2d 431, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2072
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 19, 1958
DocketNo. 6773
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 314 S.W.2d 431 (Parks v. Hines) 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
Parks v. Hines, 314 S.W.2d 431, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2072 (Tex. Ct. App. 1958).

Opinion

CHAPMAN, Justice.

This case involves separate appeals by appellants, I. W. Parks and J. A. Robinson Sons Trucking Contractors, a partnership, each and both defendants in the court below, from adverse rulings against both defendants by the trial court on their respective pleas of privilege duly controverted.

Appellees, Edward B. Hines, R. B. Anderson, Mertice Anderson and Mary Julie Ann Murphy, a minor, acting by and through her mother, Spicey Joyce Woods, as her next friend, all residents of Ochiltree County, Texas, brought this suit against [433]*433the above named appellants for personal injuries and property damage arising out of a collision in which a 1955 Pontiac four-door sedan owned by appellee Hines and driven by Julie West ran into the rear of a pickup owned and being driven at the time by appellant, I. W. Parks. The collision occurred abreast of a parked truck in the opposite lane of traffic on State Highway No. 15 near Waka, Ochiltree County, Texas. The case having been filed in the last named county, appellant, I. W. Parks, filed his plea of privilege to be sued in Hansford County, where he had legal residence at the time of the collision and -at the time the suit was filed. The Robinson trucking partnership filed its plea of privilege to be sued in Hutchinson County, the legal residence of the trucking partnership and each member thereof at the time of the collision and at the time the suit was filed.

Though State Highway 15 runs in a general north-east and south-west direction at the place of collision it was, in the court below, and will be here, referred to as an east-west highway. On the morning of May 4, 1957, appellant, the trucking partnership, had four trucks carrying equipment to an oil and gas lease known as the Buzzard Lease. One of the trucks loaded with oil field pipe and driven by Jim Robinson, a 23 year old son of one of the Robinson partners, and an employee of the partnership, went through the little town of Waka and about a quarter of a mile east thereof parked his truck on the pavement on his right-hand side of the highway and began the task of putting chains on his tires preparatory to leaving the pavement for a location on the named lease. At the time Robinson stopped, James Hathorn, an oil field contractor was parked in his pickup on the east side of the pavement skirt running off the pavement into a lane intersecting with the highway from the south, with the front of his pickup facing Highway 15 and about six to eight feet from the south side of the pavement thereon. Hat-horn contracts production for several oil companies and was there to direct the Robinson trucks to the location and to give instructions to the driver of a crawler tractor coming there for the purpose of pulling the trucks to their location after they left the paved highway. The testimony is without dispute that it had recently rained and that the unpaved roads and the shoulders of the highway were muddy. It was partly cloudy at the time of the collision but vision was good for a mile down the highway in each direction.

On the same morning of May 4, 1957 appellee Hines’ Pontiac automobile was being driven west on Highway 15 by Julie West and at the time of the collision was following a pickup being driven by appellant Parks. Julie West’s testimony reveals the fact that she and Hines had been dating some about that time, that she often kept his car while he was at work and on the occasion in question was on the way to Borger to take her sister, her mother, Mer-tice Anderson and her sister’s children. The cause of action alleged grew out of the fact that the Pontiac automobile being driven by Julie West ran into the back of the Parks pickup, which collision took place at about the middle of the length of the Robinson truck parked in the traffic lane to their left on State Highway 15.

To retain venue in Ochiltree County, appellees, by brief, admit they relied solely on Subsection 9a of Article 1995 without aid of any other exception to one’s right to be sued in the county of his residence. They insist the testimony was sufficient for the trial court to impliedly find that each and both appellants were guilty of negligence and that their respective acts of negligence constitute proximate causes of the collision and resulting injuries. There is no controversy between the two appellants, defendants below, but they each assert no evidence and insufficient evidence justifying the trial court making implied findings of negligence and proximate cause respectively against them.

The driver of the Pontiac, Julie West, was used by appellees as their first witness. [434]*434She is the daughter of appellees, R. B. Anderson and Mertice Anderson, the aunt of appellee, Mary Julie Ann Murphy and the sister of Spicey Joyce Woods who sued as next friend of her daughter, Mary Julie Ann Murphy. In effect her testimony was that on the morning of the collision she had been following the Parks pickup for about five minutes, most of the time about 300 feet behind him, with both of them driving between 50 and 55 miles per hour; that the highway right-of-way off the pavement “was awfully muddy and there was water in the ditch and just impassable on the right hand side”; that she saw the Robinson truck, which she first thought was moving, about a half mile before she reached it; that she knew it occupied the traffic lane to her left on Highway 15; that when the brake light of the Parks pickup first came on she was about 200 feet behind him; that at said time the pickup was between 30 and 40 feet from the front of the parked truck and that at the time both she and the Parks pickup were still traveling between 50 and 55 miles per hour. She then testified that when she saw the brake light of the Parks pickup come on she applied her brakes to slow down, they didn’t catch, she pumped them and they still would not hold and she ran into the back of the Parks pickup because the Robinson truck prevented her passing on the left and the muddy shoulder of the highway prevented her passing on the right. She testified that she could have slowed down enough to keep from running into the pickup had her brakes not failed. It is important to note that her testimony was to the effect that the brake light of the pickup came on, went off, then came back on and stayed until the collision; that at the time the impact took place they were about the center of the length of the parked truck and the pickup was going about 15 miles per hour while she was still going between 50 and 55 miles per hour.

The witness, James Hathorn, also placed on the stand by appellees as their witness, testified that when the driver stopped on the highway he asked him if he thought he ought to remain on the highway to put on his chains and that Robinson said he would bog down if he didn’t. Hathorn’s testimony further showed that as the pickup and Pontiac approached, the truck had its left blinker light on and his pickup, about 50 feet north of the truck had its right blinker light on; that the Parks pickup as it passed in front of him was going between 20 and 30 miles an hour and the Pontiac between 50 and 60 miles per hour with its brake lights on, but with the brakes having no effect. He testified the pickup did not slow down from the time he saw it until the impact and that at no time after it came into his view, about 50 feet before it reached the front of the truck, did it slow down suddenly.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Williams v. Jackson
436 S.W.2d 956 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1968)
Neill v. Baltazar
345 S.W.2d 454 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1961)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
314 S.W.2d 431, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2072, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/parks-v-hines-texapp-1958.