Wright v. Schaff

228 S.W. 333, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 727
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 26, 1921
DocketNo. 8368.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 228 S.W. 333 (Wright v. Schaff) 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
Wright v. Schaff, 228 S.W. 333, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 727 (Tex. Ct. App. 1921).

Opinion

TALBOT, J.

The appellant sued the ap-pellee to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by appellant while he was a passenger on a passenger train of the appellee, and for false imprisonment of the appellant, charged to have been procured and brought about by the wrongful acts of the servants and agents of the appellee. The petition alleges, in substance, that on December 24, 1917, the plaintiff was a passenger on the defendant’s passenger train; en route from Greenville, Hunt county, Tex., to Cason, Morris county, Tex.; that appellant is a negro, and was sitting in a seat in the section or compartment reserved and set aside to negroes; that he surrendered his ticket to the defendant’s train auditor shortly after leaving the station at Green-ville, and was given a hat check; that after passing Campbell, the first town east from Greenville, in Hunt county, Tex., the auditor again demanded of the plaintiff that he .surrender his ticket, and, on being informed by the plaintiff that he had surrendered his ticket, and on also being informed by the *334 plaintiff that his hat check was in his hat, the auditor roughly took the plaintiff’s hat from his head and examined the hat; that upon the protest of the plaintiff as to the rough'treatment of his property hy the auditor, the auditor threw the hat back to the plaintiff, and cursed the plaintiff and called him an “impudent black son of a bitch,” and’ told the plaintiff that he would go and get his gun and kill him; that thereafter the auditor left the car in which plaintiff was riding, and in a short time returned to said car and to the seat where plaintiff was sitting; that the auditor had his hand in his right-hand coat pocket; that the auditor had further words with the plaintiff, and then started to draw his pistol from his coat pocket ; that the plaintiff in order to protect .himself, and believing that he would be killed or seriously injured, jumped from his seat and grabbed the auditor’s hand and arm, to prevent himself from being shot; that a scuffle ensued, but, notwithstanding the plaintiff’s efforts to prevent injury to himself, he was shqt in the knee by said auditor, all without any cause or provocation on the part of the plaintiff; that after the shooting of the plaintiff he was arrested by officers of Hopkins county, Tex., at the instance and procurement of the defendant’s agents, and was taken from the train and incarcerated in the jails of Hopkins and Hunt counties, Tex.; that the injury inflicted upon plaintiff was serious and permanent, and by reason of the pain and suffering occasioned he was damaged in the sum of $10,000; that on account of the wrongful arrest of the plaintiff and his incarceration in the jails of Hopkins a’nd Hunt counties, at the instance and direction of the defendant’s agents, servants, and em-ployés, and the humiliation and suffering thereto, he was damaged in the sum of $5,-000. The defendant answered plaintiff’s petition by general and special exceptions, general denial, and alleged that plaintiff’s injury was occasioned by his own misconduct, and by plaintiff’s assault upon defendant’s auditor with a knife, and that the auditor shot the plaintiff in self-defense; * * * that if plaintiff was injured, said injury was slight, and was occasioned by his own neglect and failure to have proper, medical attention. The case was tried before a jury, and upon a general charge of the court a verdict was returned in favor of the defendant.

[1, 2] The first and second assignments of error purport to state the substance of the testimony, and assert that the verdict of the jury is not warranted and supported thereby, and that the court, therefore, erred in not granting the appellant’s motion for a now trial. These assignments will be overruled. Admitting' that the carrier owes to its passengers all the duty of protection from the assaults of its servants and employes claimed by appellant, yet, while the testimony, upon the issue to which the assignments in question relate, was conflicting, it was sufficient to require submission of the issue to the jury and render their solution of it conclusive upon this court.

[3] The appellant requested the court, by his special charge No. 7, to instruct the jury as follows:

“Gentlemen of the jury, you are instructed that if you believe from the evidence that, at the time in question the defendant’s train auditor and the plaintiff had a controversy on defendant’s train, the .auditor used harsh and threatening words toward plaintiff in the presence and hearing of plaintiff, and in substance stated that he would go and get his gun and come back and shoot plaintiff, and if you believe that the auditor did leave the car and return in a short time and approach the plaintiff with a pistol,, and with his hand in his pocket, and that by reason of the language and action of the said auditor the plaintiff believed that the said auditor intended to carry out his threat, or to inflict upon him serious bodily injury, then you are instructed that the plaintiff had a right to take hold of the auditor or grab him, if he did, and to hold on to said auditor until they were separated, or to assault said auditor,’ if it reasonably appeared to the plaintiff necessary to protect himself against an assault or serious bodily injury at the hands of said auditor.”

This charge was refused, and its refusal is made the basis of appellant’s eleventh assignment of error. We are of the opinion this assignment is well taken. The refused charge is not sufficiently embraced in and covered by any paragraphs of the court’s general Charge to render its refusal immaterial. The appellant testified:

“After I got on the train and before it started, the train auditor in charge of the train came through the car and took up my ticket. He stuck a check in my hat band. After the train had reached Campbell, the first station east of Greenville about eight miles, and had stopped at the station and started again, the auditor came into the coach, passed up to the front, and turned and came back, and when he got to me he stopped and asked me where X was going, and I told him I was going to Cason. He asked me where was my ticket. I told him he took up my ticket in the yards at Greenville. He asked me where my hat check was, and I told him it was up in my hat. He said, ‘God damn you, keep the check where I can see it.’ He grabbed my hat off in a rough manner and threw it back at me. X said, ‘Don’t tear my hat; that is all the hat I’ve got.’ He said, ‘You black son of a bitch, leave that check alone.’ When he threw my hat back, it was crumpled up. When I told him, ‘Don’t tear my hat,’ he drew back like he was going to hit me, and I said, ‘Don’t hit me.’ The auditor said, ‘You impudent black son of a bitch, I will go and get my gun and come back and kill you.’ I said, ‘Don’t kill me; I haven’t done anything to be killed for.’ Then he said to me, ‘Leave that cheek alone,’ and I said, *335 ‘It is high enough for anybody to see; it is just like you left it;’ and it was like he left it. He then left the car, and went back into the next car. He was gone a little bit and came back, and as he canae in the door, I saw him put his right hand in his coat pocket, and he came up to the seat where I was sitting.

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Related

Schaff v. Wright
251 S.W. 515 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1923)

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Bluebook (online)
228 S.W. 333, 1921 Tex. App. LEXIS 727, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wright-v-schaff-texapp-1921.