Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Kalitta

• Decision Date: 08 February 1908
• Parties: HOUSTON & T. C. R. CO. v. KALITTA.<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

108 S.W. 175

HOUSTON & T. C. R. CO. v. KALITTA.^*

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

February 8, 1908.

Rehearing Denied February 27, 1908.

Appeal from District Court, Harris County; W. P. Hamilton, Judge.

Personal injury action by Paul Kalitta against the Houston & Texas Central Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, and from an order denying a new trial, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Baker, Botts, Parker & Garwood, and Lane, Jackson, Kelley & Wolters, for appellant. Jno. Lovejoy and John W. Parker, for appellee.

McMEANS, J.

Appellee sued appellant to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been received by him while in the employment of appellant in the capacity of coach cleaner. Appellee alleged that his duties required him to clean the coaches of the New York, Texas & Mexican Railway Company as well as those of appellant, and that at the time of the injury he was at work cleaning a passenger coach belonging to said New York, Texas & Mexican Railway Company, which, together with a chair car, the two being coupled together, was standing on a track in appellant's yard in the city of Houston, when a locomotive was, by defendant's servants and employés, without notice or warning to plaintiff, and with great force and violence, carelessly and negligently run against the said chair car, and thereby imparted a great shock and jar to the said coach in which plaintiff was, which threw appellee over and against an arm of a seat in said coach, causing same to strike him with great force between the legs and in the groins and lower portion of the abdomen in the right side, and injuring him so that he was then and there ruptured, or since became ruptured, on the right side in consequence thereof; that said injuries were permanent, and had caused, and would hereafter cause, him to suffer great mental pain and physical suffering, etc. Appellant answered by general denial and by pleas of assumed risk and contributory negligence. The case was submitted to a jury, who returned a verdict for appellee for $1,000, upon which a judgment for said sum was rendered against appellant. From an order overruling appellant's motion for a new trial, this appeal was taken.

The evidence, we find, sustains the allegations of the petition as to the negligence of appellant's servants in causing appellee's injuries, and we conclude from the evidence that appellee sustained injuries in the amount found by the jury, and that his injuries did not result from...