Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Hodges

• Decision Date: 13 December 1893
• Citation: 24 S.W. 563
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals
• Parties: GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO. v. HODGES.

24 S.W. 563

GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO. v. HODGES.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

December 13, 1893.

Appeal from district court, Cooke county; D. E. Barrett, Judge.

Action by J. G. Hodges against the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company to recover damages for personal injuries. Judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

J. M. Terry, for appellant.

HEAD, J.

This is a suit by appellee for injuries sustained while in the act of alighting from defendant's depot in the city of Gainesville, he having arrived at said depot as a passenger. The defense was a general denial and plea of contributory negligence. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for the sum of $600. The defendant moved for a new trial on the same grounds as are now assigned as error, which motion was overruled, and this appeal has been duly prosecuted.

We do not think the court erred in refusing to give the special instructions referred to in appellant's first and second assignments of error. It may be true that a carrier of passengers is only required to furnish and maintain one place of egress from its depot for their accommodation; but if there be upon its premises, where its passengers are invited, a place likely to cause injury to them, whether it be precipice or sink hole, it must adopt reasonable precautions for their protection therefrom. To have given the charges requested would have conveyed to the jury the idea, if appellant had provided one safe way of egress from its platform, it could leave the remainder of its premises in such condition as it might deem proper, without being chargeable with negligence. This we do not understand to be the law. Stewart v. Railroad Co., 53 Tex. 289. We believe, however, the court erred in refusing to grant appellant a new trial upon the ground that the evidence shows appellee to have been guilty of contributory negligence. It seems that the place where appellee fell from the platform was, at the time, enveloped in almost total darkness; that he got off the train on the east side of the depot, and immediately started in a northwest direction along the depot platform, and walked off of it at a place where it was between four and five feet high. In describing the manner in which he proceeded, he says: "I do not remember changing my gait at the time I alighted from the train until I fell. I got on the platform so easy that I thought I could leave it as easy. When I got to the top of the...