Younger Bros., Inc. v. Ross

151 S.W.2d 621, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 400
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 1, 1941
DocketNo. 11189
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 151 S.W.2d 621 (Younger Bros., Inc. v. Ross) 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
Younger Bros., Inc. v. Ross, 151 S.W.2d 621, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 400 (Tex. Ct. App. 1941).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

This general statement, adopted by the appellees, is taken from the appellant’s brief:

“This is a suit by Mrs. Nora Ross, individually and as guardian for her three minor children, and for the use and benefit of Mrs. Betty Ross, and by Texas Employers Insurance Association, as inter-venor, seeking to enforce subrogation rights created by payment of workmen’s compensation insurance to Mrs. Nora Ross and her three minor children, against Younger Bros., Inc., for pecuniary damage on account of the death of Charles N. Ross, in an automobile-truck accident, which occurred on the Houston-Beaumont Highway in Harris County, Texas, on March 21, 1939.
“Plaintiffs filed their suit in the district court of Harris County alleging that the death of Charles N. Ross was caused by various and sundry negligent acts and omissions on the part of Younger Bros., Inc., and its truck driver, and seeking pecuniary damage on account of the death of Charles N. Ross.
“Intervenor, Texas Employers Insurance Association, sought to recover its subrogation rights, alleging that it -was the compensation insurance carrier for the employer of Ross and that it had paid Mrs. Ross and her children workmen’s compensation insurance, and was entitled to recover the sum so paid, in the amount of $3,415.38 out of any judgment that might be had by the plaintiffs in the case.
“Younger Bros., Inc., filed its amended answer, consisting of a general demurrer, special exceptions, general denial, pleas of contributory negligence, new and independent cause, sole proximate cause, and sudden emergency.
“The case was tried to a jury and the jury returned its verdict on special issues.
“The court entered judgment in favor of all plaintiffs and against the defendant in the total sum of $25,000.00.”

The appealed from judgment was rendered alone upon the jury’s verdict in response to the 67 special issues submitted, the court having made no additional findings of its own from the evidence; the court did, however, thus apportion the total $25,000 damages, as found by the jury, among the several appellees:

“The amount of this judgment, to-wit, $25,000.00, is here now apportioned between the plaintiffs and the intervener as follows :
“To the plaintiff, Mrs. Nora Ross, in her individual capacity, the sum of $17,500.00;
“To the use of plaintiff, Mrs. Betty Ross, suing herein by and through the plaintiff, Mrs. Nora Ross, the sum of $1500.00;
“To the plaintiff, Mrs. Nora Ross, as guardian of the person and estate of the minor, Frances Louise Ross, and for the use and benefit of such minor, the sum of $416.66;
[624]*624“To the Plaintiff, Mrs. Nora Ross, as guardian of the person and estate of the minor plaintiff, Harold Eugene Ross, and for the use and benefit of such minor, the sum of $1216.67;
“To the plaintiff, Mrs. Nora Ross, as guardian of the person and estate of the minor plaintiff, Charline Ross, and for the use and benefit of such minor, the sum of $1216.67;
“To the intervener, Texas Employers Insurance Association, the sum of $3500.00.”

Appellant inveighs against the judgment so adverse to it below through 15 propositions of law, the first and third of which challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the respective findings of the jury under grouped special issues 14 to 16, inclusive, and 29, 32, 37 and 39, inclusive, on the ground that each and all of them “are contrary to the undisputed evidence and to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence.”

None of these several assaults upon the verdict can be sustained; on the contrary, it is held, after a painstaking examination of the statement of facts, that no one of these findings was either contrary to the undisputed evidence, or to its overwhelming weight and preponderance; the verdict, therefore, insofar as it rests upon any of them, must here be accepted as reflecting the facts developed upon each and all those features of the cause.

A brief resume of such two groups of resultant facts is this:

Under issues 14 to 16, inclusive: “The driver of the appellant’s truck could have stopped the same after it came into contact with the car which Charles N. Ross was driving, and before such truck pushed and shoved the car mentioned from the highway and into the telephone post, standing on the east side of the highway, and such failure was negligence, and a proximate cause of the death of Charles N. Ross.”

Under 29, 32, 37, and 39 : “Charles N. Ross did not operate his car on the left side of the highway with respect to the direction in which he was driving at and prior to the collision in question, and he did not fail to operate his car on the right-hand side of the highway at a time when the left-hand side of the highway was not clear and unobstructed for at least 50 yards ahead.”

It would be going beyond the requirements for this Court to undertake to even recapitulate the great bulk of the testimony supporting these two consolidated findings, hence that will not be done. The collision occurred on a foggy morning, on U. S. Highway 90, about 3 miles from the city limits of Houston toward Beaumont, by the head-on coming together of appellant’s oversized and overloaded truck and trailer, being driven in a southerly direction by its employee, Summers, and the light Ford coupe, being driven by the deceased, Charles N. Ross, in a northerly direction, the truck “stopping such small car in its tracks and then pushing and shoving it backward and down the highway in the direction from which it had been coming for a distance of some 75 feet; pushing such small car off of the highway on the left-hand side thereof, in the direction in which the truck was going, shoving such small car across the barrow-ditch, and up against a telephone post, the truck totally crushing and demolishing the car, running over it and flattening it out, and the forward motion of the truck not being arrested until its bumper struck the telephone post, breaking the same off, the truck finally coming to rest with its bumper against the telephone post. After the wreck, the bodies of Charles N. Ross and a man who had been riding with him in the car were found in the wreckage, with the bumper of the truck resting against their chests.”

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Bluebook (online)
151 S.W.2d 621, 1941 Tex. App. LEXIS 400, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/younger-bros-inc-v-ross-texapp-1941.