Home/Texas Supreme Court/Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brown

Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brown

14 S.W. 1034, 78 Tex. 397, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1419
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 11, 1890
DocketNo. 3050
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 14 S.W. 1034 (Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Brown, 14 S.W. 1034, 78 Tex. 397, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1419 (Tex. 1890).

Opinion

GAINES, Associate Justice.

—The appellee was a passenger on appellant’s road, and having alighted from the train in the night time, in . attempting to leave the platform fell and received personal injuries, for which he brought this .suit and recovered a judgment. The place of the .■ accident, with its surroundings, is shown by the accompanying diagram. (See next page.)

There were two platforms attached to the station, both north of the track, the lower adjacent thereto and the higher contiguous to and north ■ of the lower. Upon the higher the company’s waiting room, offices, and ware room were situated. The way of passing from the cars was to go west along the lower platform to the steps at H; thence up the steps to the upper platform; thence north along the west end of the building to the incline marked EEE, and thence down that to the ground.

The plaintiff testified that he had been at the station before the night of the accident, but did not recollect the way which was provided for approaching and leaving the cars; that on the night in question it was dark, and that having alighted upon the lower platform he started west, that being the direction of the house of the friend whom he was going to visit. Not being able to see by reason of the darkness, he stepped off the platform at the west end, and there being no steps, fell upon a log and was injured. The only light about the station, except those in the waiting room and office and the car of the Cotton Belt road, was a lamp at the corner of the depot building—at the point marked F on the plot. ' That was an ordinary- lamp.

The appellant first complains that the court erred in refusing to give the following special instruction: “If defendant did not furnish safe places for persons to go from their depot at Big Sandy, and plaintiff was injured by reason of defendant’s failure to do these things, then plaintiff can recover. And if the depot at Big Sandy has places prepared for the public where they can go in safety, then plaintiff can not recover if he received his injuries in going from the depot in a direction where the public did not usually go, and in a direction which had not been prepared for the public.”

The charge was;properly refused. A railroad company is bound to provide but one safe- way of approach and egress to and from its cars. But the act of negligence which was charged in this case, and which the evidence tended to prove, was .not that the company had not constructed a [400]*400safe passage way, but that it had provided no means by which that way was apparent to passengers alighting in the night time, and that they were left to grope their way without sufficient light and to encounter dangers that could not be discovered. In such a case it would have been erroneous to charge that plaintiff could not recover if the defendant had prepared a way which the public could safely travel, and if plaintiff went in a direction in which the public did not usually go. There was no evidence that the defendant knew the way people usually went.

[399]*399 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

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

Related

Whitfield v. Traders & General Ins. Co.
136 S.W.2d 626 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1940)
Simpson v. Whitesboro Nat. Bank
120 S.W.2d 462 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1938)
Payne v. Bannon
238 S.W. 701 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1922)
Melton v. Manning
216 S.W. 488 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1919)
Ft. Worth & R. G. Ry. Co. v. Keith
208 S.W. 891 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1919)
Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Stephens
198 S.W. 396 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1917)
St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Texas v. Felts
195 S.W. 1173 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1917)
St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. of Texas v. Martin
161 S.W. 405 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1913)
Kirby Lumber Co. v. Williams
159 S.W. 309 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1913)
San Antonio Traction Co. v. Urban
155 S.W. 1028 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1913)
Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Burk
146 S.W. 600 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1912)
Boswell v. Pannell
146 S.W. 233 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1912)
Lewis v. Vaughan
144 S.W. 1186 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1912)
Guinn v. Pecos & N. T. Ry. Co.
142 S.W. 63 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1911)
St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. of Texas v. Green
138 S.W. 241 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1911)
Berger v. Kirby
135 S.W. 1122 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1911)
Oar v. Davis
135 S.W. 710 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1911)
Houston & Texas Central Railroad v. Haberlin
133 S.W. 873 (Texas Supreme Court, 1911)
Houston & Texas Central Railroad v. Haberlin
125 S.W. 107 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1910)
Hamilton v. Dismukes
115 S.W. 1181 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1909)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
14 S.W. 1034, 78 Tex. 397, 1890 Tex. LEXIS 1419, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-pacific-railway-co-v-brown-tex-1890.