International & G. N. R. Co. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 17 March 1899
• Citation: 50 S.W. 732
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL & G. N. R. CO. v. WILLIAMS.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

50 S.W. 732

INTERNATIONAL & G. N. R. CO. v. WILLIAMS.¹

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

March 17, 1899.

Appeal from district court, Anderson county; W. H. Gill, Judge.

Action by Charles Williams against the International & Great Northern Railroad Company. A verdict was rendered for plaintiff, and from a judgment entered thereon, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

G. H. Gould, for appellant. A. W. Gregg and Gardner & Gardner, for appellee.

WILLIAMS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of appellee against appellant for the sum of $5,500 as damages for personal injuries sustained by appellee in falling from a passenger train of appellant on which he was riding as a passenger, such fall being alleged to have resulted from negligence of appellant. A statement of the pleadings is unnecessary. The facts are that appellee, a negro, procured a ticket, and entered a regular passenger train of appellant at Palestine, to ride thereon to Tyler. The parts of the coaches set apart for the accommodation of negroes were so crowded that there was not room inside for appellee either to sit or stand, and, having ascertained this fact after the train started, he stood upon the platform of one of the cars, which was also crowded with passengers. This crowded condition of the cars seems to have been unusual, and resulted from the fact that large numbers of persons had come to Palestine on the day in question to attend a circus, and were returning at night on this train to their homes. The headquarters, shops, and coaches of the appellant are kept at Palestine, and its agent knew, or with ordinary care could have seen, that there was not sufficient room in the cars to accommodate the passengers, before the train left Palestine. No effort was made to show that appellant, for any reason, did not have, at that point, enough coaches to have supplied the demand. Appellee, after finding there was no room in the cars, continued to ride on the platform, holding to a small railing there, for about five miles from Palestine, when two of the passengers standing with him on the platform became involved in an altercation, or playful tussle, and one threw back his elbow suddenly, accidentally striking appellee, and causing him to lose his balance, and fall from the car. He sustained serious injuries, for which it is not claimed that the compensation awarded by the jury is excessive. There is more or less conflict in the evidence about several of the facts stated, but the verdict of the jury, which necessarily affirms their existence in appellee's favor, is well sustained by testimony. We therefore conclude —as under the charge of the trial judge the jury must have done in order to find this verdict—that, in failing to furnish sufficient cars to enable appellee to obtain a seat inside, appellant was guilty of negligence; that, since there was neither seat nor standing room inside, appellee was not, after he learned this fact, guilty of negligence in standing on the platform; that the negligence of appellant in thus exposing appellee to the danger incident to standing upon the platform continued to operate, and concurred with that of the passenger, whose arm pushed appellee, in proximately causing his fall. It follows that we hold that the verdict is sustained by the evidence.

The following part of the charge is assigned as error: "So, if you find from the evidence that plaintiff was a passenger on defendant's passenger train; that defendant company had negligently failed to furnish sufficient cars to accommodate its negro passengers with a seat in a compartment or compartments required by law to be set apart for the use of negroes; that thereupon plaintiff went out, and stood upon the platform of one of defendant's coaches, and while so standing upon such platform he was, without negligence on his part, shoved or thrown therefrom by the motion of another or other passengers, and injured, as alleged; that defendant company's failure, if any, to furnish sufficient room, as above explained, was negligence; and that the accident and injury, if any, to plaintiff was the natural, direct, and proximate result of such negligence on the part of defendant, or of such negligence on the part of defendant, concurring with the acts of negligence of others than plaintiff in such way as that the injury would not have occurred but for the negligence of defendant, —you will find for the plaintiff." The first objection is that it justified appellee in going upon the platform. This is not the case. It left the jury to say whether or not there was contributory negligence, and other...