Southern Railway Co. v. Hobson

58 So. 751, 4 Ala. App. 408, 1912 Ala. App. LEXIS 328
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 9, 1912
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 58 So. 751 (Southern Railway Co. v. Hobson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southern Railway Co. v. Hobson, 58 So. 751, 4 Ala. App. 408, 1912 Ala. App. LEXIS 328 (Ala. Ct. App. 1912).

Opinion

de GRAFFENRIED, J.

“In all cases for injuries ex delicto to the person or to personal property, the venue is in general transitory and may he laid in any county, though committed out of the jurisdiction of our courts or of the queen’s dominions. Thus, action for assaults, batteries and false imprisonments; and for words and libels; even for setting up a defamatory mark • on the plaintiff’s house, denoting that it was a house of ill fame, being a personal injury to plaintiff’s character, and not considered as an injury to the building; and for taking away and injuring personal property; and for escapes and false returns; and upon bail bonds — are transitory.” — 1 Chitty on Pleadings (16th Am. Ed.) 282.

The law does not require, in actions like the present, the useless statement in what place or what part of a county the fact or facts out of which the cause of action arose occurred. “As to the extent of the application of this rule, it would, seem from its terms to apply to every declaration and pleading in which local description is not clearly required; so that, even in actions where the venue is local, as in case, for an injury to a house or land, or right of common or way, after stating the county in the margin, no subsequent statement of place is necessary.” — 1 Chitty on Pleadings (16th Am. Ed.) 287.

Section 6112 of the Code provides that a foreign or domestic corporation may be sued in any county in which it does business by agents; but all actions for personal injury must be brought where the injury occurred or in the county .where the plaintiff resides, if such corporation does business by agent in the county of plaintiff’s residence. This section of the Code is [411]*411section 4207 of tbe Code of 1896,- as amended by the Legislature of Alabama by an act approved March 5,- 1908. In construing that act, the Supreme Court of Alabama say: “Notwithstanding Acts 1903, p. 182, requiring these actions to be brought in the county where the injury occurred or in the county where plaintiff resides, it is not necessary to allege these matters in the complaint, as it is a matter of defense to be pleaded.”—T. C. I. & R. R. Co. v. Bridges, 114 Ala. 237, 39 South. 904 (113 Am. St. Rep. 35).

We have been able to find nothing, in any of the authorities, indicating that the law requires the plaintiff in his complaint in cases like the present to even state the country in which the injury of which he complains was received by him. We certainly have found nothing indicating that the law requires him to state the particular place at which such an injury occurs, and we see no reason why the law should make any such requirements. The sufficiency of the complaint in this case has been expressly upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of A. G. S. R. R. Co. v. Hall, 133 Ala. 362, 32 South. 259, and, without further discussion, we are of the opinion that the trial court committeed no error in overruling the defendant’s demurrer to the complaint.

2. We cannot affirm that there was no evidence in this case from which the jury did not have the right to infer that the death of the plaintiff’s mare was not due to the negligence of the defendant’s servants. For this reason charge 11, requested in writing by the defendant, was properly refused.—Birmingham Ry. Co. v. Enslen, 144 Ala. 343, 39 South. 74; A. G. S. R. R. Co. v. Hall, supra.

3. While the complaint charges that the defendant negligently caused the mare of the plaintiff to run into a trestle we do not think that the injury complained of [412]*412is ascribed by the plaintiff to any act of negligence committed by the defendant itself. We think that the allegations of the complaint were sufficiently met if the jnry were reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the injury complained of was caused by the negligence of the servants of the defendant, while acting within the line of their employment.-Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Thomas, 1 Ala. App. 167, 55 South. 443.

4. Courts are not required to charge-a jury to the effect that there is no evidence of a given fact.—Western Steel, Car & Foundry Co. v. Cunningham, 158 Ala. 369, 48 South. 109. For the above reason, as well as for the reasons set forth in section 2 of this opinion, charge 12, requested by the defendant, was properly refused by the court.

5. The evidence in this case shows that the plaintiff’s mare, being frightened by an approaching hand car which was then being operated by defendant’s employes, jumped upon defendant’s railroad tracks, and while in a frightened condition ran upon the track in the direction of a trestle and jumped into the trestle, sustaining injuries from which she died. There was evidence tending to show that the mare, in her frightened condition, went upon the track 420 yards from the trestle, and that she ran that distance with the hand car behind her and not at a great distance and gaining on her. The parties in charge of the car, it was admitted, saw the mare when she went upon the track, and she remained in sight of the car from the time she went upon the track until she jumped into the trestle. Of course, the jury were authorized to infer that the employes saw the trestle, or knew that the trestle was at the point where it was situated. There was evidence tending to show that the mare, when she reached the trestle, stopped and looked around; that the car con-[413]*413tinned in her direction with unabated speed; and that when the car drew near to the mare she turned and jumped into the trestle. Some of the evidence tended to show that the mare did not stop at all, but jumped into the trestle as soon as she reached it. There was evidence tending to show that the parties operating the' car made unusual and unnecessary noises calculated to needlessly alarm the animal while she was on the track; but the testimony of the defendant’s employes tended to show that they made no such noises, and that the car was permitted to run in an orderly and customary way from the time the mare went on the track until the injury occurred.

It is undoubtedly true that the plaintiff’s mare jumped into the trestle and so injured herself that she died because she was frightened by the approach of defendant hand car. Whether or not, under all the circumstances, the death of the mare was due to the negligence of the defendant’s servants while acting within the line of their employment, was a question, as we have above stated, not for the court, but for the jury. This being true, the law did not require the court to give any charge to the jury, at the request of either of the parties, which was calculated to mislead the jury. While a court will not be reversed for giving a charge which has a misleading tendency unless it clearly appears that the jury was mislead by it to the prejudice of the party against whom it was given, nevertheless a trial court will not be reversed for refusing to give such a charge.—Henningburg v. State, 158 Ala. 13, 45 South, 246; Hammond v. State, 147 Ala. 31 South. 761; Atlanta & Birmingham Ry Co. v. Wheeler, 154 Ala. 530, 46 South. 262; Vandiver v. Waller, 143 Ala. 411; 39 South. 136.

It is also a well-established rule that when charges are much involved or are confused, they should not be given.[414]*414W. U. Tel. Co. v. Benson, 159 Ala. 254, 48 South. 712; 6 Mayfield’s Dig. p. 112, §§ 182, 183, 184.

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Related

Atlanta, B. A. Ry. Co. v. Ballard
82 So. 470 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1919)
Western Union Telegraph Company v. Morrison.
74 So. 88 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1917)
Hatcher v. Southern Railway Co.
68 So. 55 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1915)
Watts v. State
63 So. 18 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1913)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
58 So. 751, 4 Ala. App. 408, 1912 Ala. App. LEXIS 328, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southern-railway-co-v-hobson-alactapp-1912.