Texas Co. v. Blackstock

21 S.W.2d 13
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 11, 1929
DocketNo. 605.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 21 S.W.2d 13 (Texas Co. v. Blackstock) 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
Texas Co. v. Blackstock, 21 S.W.2d 13 (Tex. Ct. App. 1929).

Opinion

HICKMAN, O.. J.

This suit was instituted by appellee against appellant for damages growing out of injuries received by his daughter, Ermalee Blaekstock, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of appellant’s truck driver. The trial resulted in a judgment for appellee for $1,000. The elements of damages submitted to the jury were bills for hospital, doctors, medicine, bandages, and drugs theretofore incurred and which might thereafter be incurred during the minority of the daughter, the value of the services of appellee and his wife in attending their. daughter during the time of her injury, and the value in money of the services which the daughter would have contributed to appellee during her minority, had said injuries not been sustained by her. The facts are practically undisputed, and are, in brief, as follows;

On the date of-the injury, Roy Ledbetter was in charge of a truck belonging to appellant, hauling oil well supplies for appellant on the Moran and Cisco Highway in Shackelford county. About a mile and a half or two miles south of Moran he overtook Ermalee Black-stock, the nine year old daughter of appellee, who was being sent on an errand to Moran by her parents, and invited her to ride in the truck with him. According to Ledbetter’s testimony, the right door of the cab of his truck would not open easily, and he opened the left door, climbed down, and assisted the child to get in the truck on that side. She was seated on the seat with Ledbetter and to his right. Upon reaching the outskirts of Moran the truck was stopped, Ledbetter descended from the truck on the left side, and helped the child to alight on that side. The highway was paved and was about 10 feet wide. The evidence would support the conclusion that the truck was stopped in the middle of the highway or to the left of the middle thereof. When Ledbetter assisted the child in alighting from the truck on the left-hand side thereof, according to her testimony, he told her to run. Before she reached the left side of the pavement, which was but a few feet from where she alighted, an automobile driven by Abe Hiller, and which was proceeding down the highway in the same direction in which the truck was pointed, struck her and inflicted serious injuries upon her. There was a conflict in the testimony as to why the child left the truck at this particular point, she testifying that Ledbetter told her he was turning off the highway there and was going no further in her direction, and Ledbetter testifying that the child asked to get out there.

In its charge to the jury the court defined “ordinary care,” “negligence,” “proximate cause,” and “efficient and intervening cause,” after which three special issues were submitted. The first special issue was as follows; “Under all the facts and circumstances in this case and under the conditions existing at the time of the injury of Enmalee Blaekstock, was fhe operator or driver of the defendant’s truck negligent, as that term has been heretofore defined to you, in the way and manner in which he allowed' the said Ermalee Black-stock to alight from said truck?” This issue was answered, “Tes.”

By their answers to the second and third issues the jury determined that such negligence was the proximate cause of the injuries and that appellee was damaged in the sum of $1,000. No questions are presented here as to any rulings of the court except the failure to peremptorily instruct the jury, at appellant’s request, to return a verdict in its favor. The only question before us, therefore, is whether as a matter of law the evidence, taken in the light most favorable to appellee, was sufficient to establish a case of liability against appellant. It is not urged that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the finding of negligence on the part of Ledbetter in failing to use ordinary care in assisting the child to alight, but the insistence is that no liability was shown on the part of appellant under the doctrine of respondeat superior.

The driver of the truck had no authority, actual or implied, to invite the child to ride on the truck, and no. right of action against his master resulted from the invitation. Cook v. Navigation Co., 76 Tex. 353, 13 S. W. 475, 476, 18 Am. St. Rep. 52; Smith Bros. v. Williams (Tex. Civ. App.) 294 S. W. 309 (error refused).

We must therefore view this case as if the child got on -board the truck without an in- • vitation to do so. It would be unfair to .the girl to call her a trespasser, in so far as the *15 term implies any wrongful act on her part; but as to the company she was not rightfully on the truck, and the liability of the company to her must be governed by the same rules which would govern in the case of a child found by the truck driver on the truck.

The instant the child came on board the truck, regardless of how she came there, the law created. certain duties and obligations against the owner thereof with regard to her safety. These duties and obligations arose by virtue of the situation then created and out of considerations of humanity and the immaturity of the child. One of the duties owing by the master was not to permit her to be on board if her presence there was dangerous. This duty is declared in the following cases, in which facts similar to those in this case existed: Cook v. Navigation Co., supra; M., K. & T. R. Co. v. Rodgers, 89 Tex. 675, 36 S. W. 243; Smith Bros. v. Williams, supra.

In the case of Cook v. Navigation Co., Justice Gaines used this language, in expressing the basis of the liability of the master to a ehild of immature years and lacking in discretion who came on board a tug boat on the unauthorized invitation of members of the crew: “But we think it was the duty of the company not to permit them on board, if their presence there was dangerous. When the company left the management of the boat to its servants the duty devolved upon them, and it cannot be permitted to say that their action in allowing the children on the boat was contrary to orders, and'that it is not liable. A master is liable for the wrongful acts of his servant, done within the scope of his authority, although they be done in disobedience of express orders.”

Assuming that the child in the instant case was lacking in discretion (a question which we shall notice later), then it follows from the above authorities that the master was liable for her injuries if it was dangerous for her to be on the truck, and if she was injured by reason of such dangerous situation. We think it could not be said, as an abstract proposition, that a truck is dangerous machinery, nor could it be said that the injuries in this case were produced by any inherent dangers therein. Neither do we think it could be said, as an abstract proposition, that a tugboat (as in the Oook Case, supra), a. hand car (as in the Rodgers Case, supra), or the back end of a truck (as in the Smith Bros. Case, supra), is dangerous. But a tugboat in water with a pile of wood near the rim thereof, a hand' car operated on a railroad track, and a truck with a ehild seated on it back of the driver’s cab and operated on a rough road, were each held to be dangerous in the above cases. Similarly, we think a truck on a frequently traveled, paved highway with a child seated on the right-hand side of the seat thereof, under the necessity at some time to alight therefrom, with the corresponding duty on the part of the owner to permit her to alight, and with the door on the right side not in working order, is a dangerous situation.

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Bluebook (online)
21 S.W.2d 13, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-co-v-blackstock-texapp-1929.