Wittkower v. Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co.

73 S.W.2d 867, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 733
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 1934
DocketNo. 3006.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 73 S.W.2d 867 (Wittkower v. Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co.) 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
Wittkower v. Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co., 73 S.W.2d 867, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 733 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

WALTHALL, Justice.

This suit was brought in the district court of Dallas county by Louis D. Wittkower, for himself and as next friend for his minor daughter, June Louise Wittkower, as plaintiffs, against the Dallas Railway & Terminal Company, a corporation, the Texas Company, a corporation, and William Brian, as defendants, to recover damages because of certain personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by said minor due to the alleged negligence of the said William Brian and the employees of the defendants, Dallas Railway & Terminal Company and the Texas Company.

Briefly stated, it was alleged that said minor on or about September 1,1933, immediately after alighting from a street car of the Dallas Railway & Terminal Company on which she was a passenger and which had been stopped at or near the intersection of Colonial avenue and Pine street in the city of Dallas, Tex., was run into and injured by a motorcycle which was being operated by the defendant William Brian.

Various acts of negligence upon the part of William Brian in operating his motorcycle and the other defendants, as causing the injuries to said minor, were attempted to be alleged.

Defendant William, Brian did not answer, and he was dismissed from the suit, and we need not further refer to him asa party to the suit. The trial court sustained a general demurrer to plaintiff’s petition presented by the Dallas Railway & Terminal Company as to the cause of action against it, and sustained a special exception to plaintiff's peti-' tion as to the Texas Company, and plaintiffs, declining to amend, plaintiffs’ suit was dismissed. From the order sustaining said general demurrer and special exception plaintiffs have duly prosecuted this appeal.

Opinion.

Appellants’ petition is lengthy, and we will state such portions of it as apparently makes clear the points to be decided. As to the ap-pellee Dallas Railway & Terminal Company, it was alleged, in substance, that the regular place of alighting used by June Louise Witt-kower in alighting from appellee’s street cars was at the intersection of said Pearl street and Colonial avenue; that on the occasion in Question plaintiff June Louise Wittkower, a child approximately ten years of age, accompanied by Jay Wood, a child of about June’s age, were passengers on the appellee’s street car, a car of the Peter Witt type; the ear was stopped at the regular stopping place at the intersection of said streets' for the convenience of the street car employees; the motorman left the street car at the front door at that stopping place and proceeded to cross the street; when the minor, June, saw the motorman start to cross the street from the front end of the car she and her companion arose from their seats in the front part of the street ear, walked to the middle door of the street car, paid the fare, and thereupon the street car conductor opened the middle doors of the street car and the minor stepped therefrom onto Colonial avenue into the path of and was struck by a motorcycle driven by defendant Brian. As to the defendant street car company, appellant assigns negligence: The conductor failed to exercise a high degree of care toward said minor child in failing to maintain a proper lookout for vehicles approaching the west middle doors of said street car just prior to the time same were opened; in failing to warn the minor child of the imminent danger of being hit by the said motorcycle upon her alighting from the street car; in opening the car doors the conductor impliedly invited the minor child to alight from. *869 the car into a place and at such time as to place her in an imminent place of danger of being struck by said motorcycle before she would have sufficient time and opportunity to protect herself from being struck by said motorcycle ; in the alternative, if the conductor did not fail to keep a proper lookout, then the conductor saw the approach of the motorcycle and knew and realized that the minor was approaching a place of danger and/or was in a place of danger and would not have sufficient time and opportunity to escape, and did not possess sufficient discretion to guard against the approaching danger in time to have avoided the accident by exercising ordinary care to avoid said collision, and failing to warn the minor not to alight, until the said motorcycle had passed, and in refraining from opening the car doors until the motorcycle had passed.

As to appellee street car company, appellants submit that having alleged the above negligent acts as to it the trial court erred in sustaining the general demurrer.

The Dallas Railway & Terminal Company submits that since appellants show that at the time the minor was injured she had ceased to be a passenger and had alighted upon a public street, the relation of carrier and passenger had terminated, and appellee owed her no further duty; and also, that since appellants’ petition shows that the injuries to the minor were occasioned by the acts of an intervening agency, the motorcycle, over which it is not shown that appellee had control or relation, the operation of the motorcycle became the sole proximate cause of such injuries, and no liability was alleged against this appellee.

Briefly stated, the petition alleges that the minor, previous to the accident, was a passenger on the street car; that the street car on the occasion in question was stopped at the regular place for passengers to alight from the car; that when the street ear had stopped and the minor saw that the motorman had left the car and started across the street the minor arose from her seat, walked to the middle door of the car, paid her fare, and thereupon the conductor opened the ear door and the minor stepped from the car to the street, where she was injured by the motorcycle.

Appellants insist that the street car company owed the minor the duty to maintain a lookout for the approach of vehicles, the duty to warn her of the danger of being hit by the motorcycle, and that opening the car door impliedly invited the minor to alight from the car into a place of danger of being struck by the motorcycle.

We have reviewed the cases referred to hy appellants and have concluded that the facts therein stated differentiate them from the facts stated here.

The questions are presented: Did the street car company owe the duty to the minor to keep a lookout for the approach of vehicles, or the duty to warn her of the danger of being hit by 'the motorcycle, dr the duty of refraining from opening the doors of the street car until after the motorcycle had passed beyond the street car?

Answering the questions in their order, the rule is generally stated to be that one who has alighted from a street car and is in safety upon the highway from any contact or collision with the street car is no longer a passenger, but is thenceforth a traveler upon the highway, subject to all the duties and obligations imposed upon such traveler, and the street car carrier is not responsible as a carrier for his safe passage from the car to the sidewalk. R. C. L. vol. 4, p. 1047; again same vol. on page 1254, and cases referred to in the notes. In El Paso Electric Co. v. Ludlow, 291 S. W. 619, this court held that the relation of carrier and passenger terminates when the passenger had safely gotten down from the car onto the pavement. Tex. Juris, vol. 8, p. 615.

In Corpus Juris, vol. 10, p.

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73 S.W.2d 867, 1934 Tex. App. LEXIS 733, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wittkower-v-dallas-ry-terminal-co-texapp-1934.