Schaff v. Johnson

267 S.W. 737
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 3, 1924
DocketNo. 2383.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 267 S.W. 737 (Schaff v. Johnson) 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
Schaff v. Johnson, 267 S.W. 737 (Tex. Ct. App. 1924).

Opinion

RANDOLPH, J.

This suit was brought by appellee against appellant for damages to a shipment of cattle, and the parties will be designated herein as in the trial court.

Plaintiff, in his petition, seeks recovery substantially upon the following allegations, to wit: That on and prior to September 30, *738 1922, lie was the owner of and in possession of 185 head of cattle which he was desirous of shipping to market at Eort Worth, Tex. That on or about said date he went to the agent of defendant at Rotan, Tex., and placed .with said agent a written order for five cattle ears to be at Rotan for loading plaintiff’s cattle on October 10, 1922, and deposited with the said agent, the sum of $100 in cash as required by said agent, as a deposit guaranteeing the payment of the freight on said cars; that, at said time, when said cars were ordered' by the plaintiff, the agent of the defendant promised plaintiff to have said cars at Rotan, ready for loading plaintiff’s cattle on .said October 10, 1922, and gave plaintiff every assurance that said cars would be at his service on said date. That relying on said promise and agreement of. the defendant to furnish cars for the loading of said cattle, plaintiff drove said cattle from his pasture, where they had been kept and prepared for market, to said town of Rotan, and placed them in the loading pens of the defendant at Rotan on October 10, 1922. That he then ascertained that the cars which he had ordered and which had been promised him by the defendant, had not arrived in Rotan, and had not been placed on the loading track at the livestock pens of the defendant, and plaintiff was unable to load his cattle because said cars were not available. That plaintiff held said cattle in the said pens for a period of three days awaiting the arrival of the cars, in order that he might load and ship his cattle. That during that period he was constantly urging the agent of defendant to get cars for him, but the defendant, its agents, and employés wholly failed and refused to furnish the cars, and plaintiff was forced, at the end of three days, to remove the cattle from the pens of the defendant and put them in a pasture a short distance from the town of Rotan, being assured and advised at said time by the defendant, its agents, and employés, that, said cars would arrive in a very short time, and plaintiff Would be able to load his cattle and ship them to Fort Worth. That he kept his cattle in the pasture awaiting the arrival of said cars until December 4,' 1922, when for the first time,- defendant furnished cars to plaintiff for loading his cattle. That the. defendant, its agents, and employés were negligent in failing and refusing to furnish plaintiff with cars for shipping his cattle, as it promised and agreed to do, and as it was its duty under the statutes of the state of Texas to do, and by its negligence in so failing to furnish plaintiff with cars as it promised and agreed to do, and as it was its duty to do under the laws of Texas, caused plaintiff’s cattle to remain in the pens, of defendant, and in such pasture awaiting shipment, from the 10th day of October, 1922, until the 4th day of December, 1922, and that as a direct and proximate result of such negligence of defendant, and as the direct and proximate result of defendant’s failure and refusal to carry out its promise to furnish plaintiff with such cars, plaintiff sustained damages in the sum of. $9,686.76, and plaintiff sets out his damages in the shrinkage in weight, loss in market price, etc.

Plaintiff then pleads that when defendant negligently failed and refused to furnish him with cars for shipping his cattle, it became necessary for plaintiff to incur certain expenses in an effort to take care of said cattle ; that all of said expenses so incurred by plaintiff were the natural and proximate result of the negligence of defendant, and defendant had knowledge of such damage, or was charged with knowledge of same, and his liability to plaintiff for same; that said damage consisted of the following items: Wages of 10 men to take care of said cattle and move them from the pens of defendant to the pasture and from the pasture back to the pens, $125; hotel bill for plaintiff and his men at Rotan while attending to said cattle, $12; extra feed for cattle, $80; pasturage for cattle at 50 cents per head for two months while being held for cars, $50; repairs on windmill in pasture in which cattle were held waiting for cars, $50; telegraph bills incurred by plaintiff in sending telegrams to defendant and to livestock firms in Fort Worth, trying to dispose of cattle; $7.60.

Plaintiff also alleged that while said cattle were being held in the pásture, two tsteers of the value of $107.76 died due to the negligence of defendant in failing to furnish such cars.

Those paragraphs of the petition which seek a recovery of penalty for failure to furnish cars, need not be considered, as same was eliminated on the trial.

Upon the question of damage, the trial court submitted the following:

“Special Issue No. 5. What amount of damage, if any, was sustained by plaintiff by reason of defendant failing to procure such ears?
“In arriving at the amount of damages, if any you assess, you will take into consideration the loss in weight, if any, to such cattle; the loss in market value, if any, and any and all necessary expenses, if any, incurred by plaintiff in caring for such cattle that defendant had notice of that plaintiff would be compelled to incur when such cars were ordered, or before such default, if any, was made by defendant.”

Defendant specially excepted to that paragraph of plaintiff’s petition alleging damages of $50 for repair of windmill and telegraph bill of $7.76, because the allegations are insufficient in that it does not appear that items of either kind were within the contemplation of the parties at the time the demand for the cars was made, and no facts are alleged showing or tending to show that either item *739 of expense was the proximate result of the failure to furnish cars within any specified time. Defendant also objected to the introduction of the evidence of the expenses incurred by plaintiff for the reason that there were no allegations in plaintiffs petition that the charges he paid for said items of expense were reasonable. These errors are presented in appellant’s propositions 1, 2, and 7.

The objection that the petition does not allege that the expenses incurred were reasonable, and therefore, that evidence establishing ■ the payment of such expenses was not admissible, cannot be sustained. The paragraph in the petition setting up these expenses was not attacked by a special exception based on that ground.

The allegation in the petition that “It became necessary for plaintiff to incur certain expense in an effort to take care of said cattle,” in the absence of a special exception, by intendment, meant that the charges were reasonable, and was sufficient to authorize the submission of the testimony to the jury. Texas Electric Co. v. Jones (Tex. Civ. App.) 231 S. W. 824; Ry. Co. v. Duck (Tex. Civ. App.) 69 S. W. 1028; Ry. Co. v. Lee, 21 Tex. Civ. App. 174, 51 S. W. 351, 57 S. W. 573; Ry. Co. v. Stuart (Tex. Civ. App.) 48 S. W. 803.

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Bluebook (online)
267 S.W. 737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schaff-v-johnson-texapp-1924.