Wachholder v. Kitchens

126 S.W.2d 519, 1939 Tex. App. LEXIS 474
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 17, 1939
DocketNo. 13878.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 126 S.W.2d 519 (Wachholder v. Kitchens) 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
Wachholder v. Kitchens, 126 S.W.2d 519, 1939 Tex. App. LEXIS 474 (Tex. Ct. App. 1939).

Opinion

BROWN, Justice.

Appellees’ property was damaged by the falling of the walls of appellant’s two-story, brick building, during a fire that burned appellant’s said building, in the City of Sulphur Springs, Texas. The allegations of the petition are, in effect, that appellant’s building, and especially the second story, was constructed and maintained in a negligent manner, by reason of the fact that the second story walls were too thin and so negligently constructed that they had cracked, and were bulging, and out of line long prior to the fire, and appellant knew or must have necessarily known of such faulty construction and dangerous' condition. The substance of ap-pellees’ pleading is that the negligence of appellant concurred with the fire in appel *521 lant’s building to bring about the injury to appellees’ property.

The case was tried to a jury on special issues, and the jury found, in substance: (1)that the east wall of defendant’s building, in view of its thickness, contained such breaks, cracks and outward bulges as that same rendered the condition of the wall dangerous and unsafe; (2) that the defendant knew, or in the exercise of ordinary care should have known, of such dangerous and unsafe condition of the walls; (3) that defendant was guilty of negligence in maintaining the wall in such condition; (4) that such negligence was the proximate cause of the injuries complained of; (5) that the damages to the plaintiffs’ building amounted to $400 and to the personal property in the building, $150.

Being dissatisfied with the judgment rendered for appellees on this verdict, the defendant below, and appellant here, appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Texarkana District, and the Supreme Court transferred the cause to this court.

Three propositions are presented, and we take them up in the order of presentation:

(1) Appellant contends that “There being no pleading or evidence to show that the fire was in any way brought about by defendant’s fault, and the fire standing as an independent and intervening agency, without which defendant’s negligence in regard to the wall would never have caused injury to plaintiffs, defendant was as a matter of law under no liability to plaintiffs and was entitled to have a verdict instructed in his favor.”

One of the latest expressions from our Supreme Court is found in a case cited by appellant: the case of Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co. of Texas v. McLain, 105 S.W.2d 206, 208 (opinion by the Commission), but in that case the Supreme Court approved this holding: “Negligence creating a condition may become the proximate cause of an injury, even though the active cause is some intervening agency, if the fact of the intervening agency could have been under all the circumstances reasonably anticipated.”

On this doctrine we stand, and we believe the pronouncement of the Supreme Court decisive of the cause before us.

Every day, human experience tells us that fires are common in our towns and cities. They may be expected at any time and should be anticipated. There would be no need of fireproof construction in our towns and cities to prevent great loss from fires, were this not true.

Furthermore, we, all of us, know that the rates of fire insurance on buildings are dependent largely upon this common, human experience and on the condition of the particular building to be insured and its proximity to other buildings. The annual fire loss in Texas is a constant reminder of the inescapable facts.

We hold that appellant ought reasonably to have foreseen that a fire might occur in his building, or even in some building adjoining 'it, that would destroy it. The fire broke out in the upper story that was vacant and, as appellant testified, locked. Appellant cannot be heard to say that he. never thought such a fire would happen..

Appellant is, indeed, a notable exception, if he did not carry fire insurance upon his building.

The Fire Chief of the city testified that he had fought more than two thousand two hundred fires within the last thirty-five years, and that appellant’s building hadi been constructed for eighteen or twenty years.

Most assuredly it was proper, under all of the facts and circumstances, for the jury to say whether or not appellant ought to have reasonably anticipated that a fire would be likely to occur in his building.

This being true, we come to the proposition that the fire, which ought reasonably to have been foreseen, was a concurring cause in bringing about the injuries complained of.

The testimony was sufficient to establish in the minds of the jury the fact that', should a fire occur in appellant’s building, his walls were in such a condition that they would not stand but would fall, and the testimony concerning the bulge in the wall was sufficient to show that it would in all likelihood fall upon appellees’ building.

We overrule appellant’s contention that he was entitled to an instructed verdict, under the facts and circumstances shown on the trial of the case.

(2) The next proposition is: “The testimony given by George Murrell, W. H-Miller and W. P. Thompson in this case was wholly inadmissible insofar as they expressed their opinions on the various; matters testified about in view of the fact *522 that they had never been properly qualified . as expert witnesses.”

This proposition refers to eleven assignments 'of error, some touching on what Murrell said, some bn what Miller said and some on what Thompson said.

If we are called upon to consider these separate and distinct eleven matters, or issues, hurled at us in one charge, we find that we must read the entire transcript and statement of facts, because appellant’s brief is not full enough to present all of these eleven issues and matters.

Trying to be as liberal as our Supreme Court is endeavoring to be, we have made the full examination required and we find that the objection goes no further- than to the weight of the testimony, not to its admissibility.

One of these witnesses was the building inspector, fire chief and fire marshal of the city; another was a carpenter and contractor, of at least twenty years’ experience in erecting brick and frame buildings; the other was a brickmason with thirty-six years’ experience.

These men were certainly experienced in their particular callings and vocations, and the trial court did not err in permitting them to express their opinions about the matters testified to by them.

Furthermore, the testimony they gave was not the only testimony adduced to show the condition of the building and no complaint is made of the testimony of other witnesses. We may add, also, that in the statement of appellant’s brief only a small portion of the testimony of the witnesses, Murrell and Miller, is attempted to be shown, while the statement of facts discloses about forty-three pages of testimony given by Murrell and about twenty-nine, pages given by Miller, and the brief attempts to give an eight-line summary of about twelve pages of testimony given by Thompson.

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126 S.W.2d 519, 1939 Tex. App. LEXIS 474, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wachholder-v-kitchens-texapp-1939.