Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Kveton

75 S.W.2d 118, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 903
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 15, 1934
DocketNo. 9958.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 75 S.W.2d 118 (Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Kveton) 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 N. O. R. Co. v. Kveton, 75 S.W.2d 118, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 903 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This cause is a repercussion of Its former appearance here wherein this court, on the state of the record then presented, held .that the evidence was sufficient to raise the issue of whether or not appellant failed to use ordinary care to .furnish appellee with reasonably safe appliances with which to do the work he was required to do and that such issue should have been submitted to the jury upon proper charge. A full statement being then made as to what it involved, which need not be repeated, T. & N. O. R. R. Co. v. Kveton (Tex. Civ. App.) 48 S.W.(2d) 523, 524, no respect wherein that holding was erroneous having been pointed out, and still believing it to have been sound, it will be adhered to. Bomar v. Parker, 68 Tex. 435, 4 S. W. 599; G., H. & S. A. Ry. Co. v. Faber, 77 Tex. 153, 8 S. W. 64.

The present record is presented upon substantially the same evidence upon appel- *119 lee’s part, with addition of the testimony of the witness Dagg, and on materially the same pleadings, except that appellee descends more into detail in setting ont the specific negligence he relied upon; moreover, the learned trial judge appears to have substantially followed the former opinion of this court in remanding the cause, in his submission of fact issues to be passed on by the jury at this trial; after having carefully reviewed the statement of facts, we are unable to agree with the appellant that the verdict returned by the jury in response to those issues was either without any evidence to support it, or so against the weight thereof as to be clearly wrong; wherefore, the conclusion is reached that the judgment entered thereon may not properly be set aside for lack of sufficient support in the testimony; the particular fact question of whether the alleged negligence of the appellant, or, as it in turn charged, wholly independent negligence upon the appellee’s part in the way he did the work, solely caused the accident, was a very sharply contested one; nevertheless, in the opinion of this court, nothing more was developed than such a conflict as the jury alone could resolve, even if it might properly be said the preponderance was in appellant’s favor. The issues submitted were numerous, but since the major attack is made upon Nos. 1 to S, inclusive, they alone will be here copied in full:

‘‘Special Issue No. 1: Did the lower face of tlie anvil die and the upper face of the lower hammer block of the steam hammer, which the defendant, The Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company, furnished the plaintiff, F. A. Kveton, with which to make brake-rod jaws at the time and place charged in plaintiff’s petition, viz: On October 25th, 192.9, fit together so unevenly in their respective surfaces as that when pressure would be applied to the anvil die it would tilt either backward'or forward in accordance with the manner in which the greatest pressure was applied to such anvil die?
“You will answer this question ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as you find the facts to be.
“If you have answered this question No. 1 ‘no,’ then you need not answer any of the other issues here submitted to you, and' will return into court your answer to this question as your verdict
“If you have answered Question No. 1 ‘yes,’ then answer this question:
“Special Issue No. 2: Do you find that the furnishing of such hammer to the plaintiff, on said occasion, by the defendant, was negligence, as that term has been hereinbefore explained to you?
“You will answer this question ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as you find the facts to be.
“If you have answered Special Issue No. 2 ‘yes,’ then answer this question.
“Special Issue No. 3: Was such negligence of said defendant, The Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company, if any you have found, the proximate cause of the injury sustained by the plaintiff, if any, to his leg, as the term ‘proximate cause’ has hereinbefore been defined to you?
“You will answer this question ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as you may find the facts to be.”

The quoted issues submitting whether or not negligence on appellant’s part was responsible for the injury were all answered favorably to the appellee, while succeeding issues 7 to 44, inclusive, submitting in well-nigh every conceivable phase the counter inquiry as to whether or not the appellee’s own negligence — either independent or contributory — was either solely or contributo-rily responsible, were all likewise answered adversely to the appellant.

As indicated supra, it cannot be said that there was insufficient supporting proof in any respect for this comprehensive settlement by the jury of these respective major contentions of the parties as to what the facts on the issues therein joined were.

But the appellant’s attack upon the first three quoted issues goes further than to merely question the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings thereon, in that, among other objections: (1) They submitted mainly evidentiary matters rather than ultimate issues of fact; (2) that they were on the weight of the evidence in assuming that there was evidence tending to show unevenness of the surfaces sufficient to cause a tilting of the lower anvil die; (3) in assuming further that nppellant furnished the particular hammer to the plaintiff to make the particular brake-rod jaw upon which he was working at the time of the accident in the manner in which he was making same; and (4) that these inquiries did not follow nor submit the issues of negligence tendered by the appellee in his pleadings.

None of these criticisms, we think, should be sustained; as already suggested, the issues seem to this court to have properly tracked the pleadings and evidence; the appellee in part having, pleaded as follows: “The specific negligent act herein complained of on the part of the defendant in failing to exercise ordinary care to furnish and provide this *120

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Related

Stevenson v. Wilson
130 S.W.2d 317 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1939)

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Bluebook (online)
75 S.W.2d 118, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 903, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-n-o-r-co-v-kveton-texapp-1934.