International & G. N. R. Co. v. Brazzil
| Decision Date | 21 October 1890 |
| Parties | INTERNATIONAL & G. N. R. CO. <I>et al.</I> v. BRAZZIL. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Appeal from district court, Smith county; FELIX J. McCORD, Judge.
Whitaker & Bonner, for appellants. J. M. Duncan and T. N. Jones, for appellee.
This is an action brought by appellee to recover of appellants damages for personal injuries received by him while a passenger on a train of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, while being operated on the road of its co-defendant. This is the second appeal by the defendants in this suit. The facts of the case are fully shown in the former opinion, which is reported in 72 Tex. 233, 10 S. W. Rep. 403.
Upon the subject of the release which was executed by the plaintiff to the defendant, the court gave the following instruction, to-wit: "That is, gentlemen, if the plaintiff was insane, or unconscious and incapacitated to contract at the time he signed the release under the rules above laid down, after the said Brazzil became conscious that he had signed such a release, and was informed of its nature and character, and that he had received said money and paid it out on his debts with a knowledge of where said money came from, and that he had received it from defendants in compromise of and in release for the injuries he had received, and he did not promptly disaffirm the contract, but acquiesced in same, then you will find for defendants in favor of said release." This charge is complained of, "because it does not instruct the jury in that paragraph as to the effect of a ratification of said release, and charges the jury that the validity of the same depends entirely upon the consciousness of the plaintiff at the time of said release;" and also because "the charge is misleading, in that it makes a knowledge on the part of the plaintiff at the time he used and paid out said money necessary to a ratification on his part, when the contract is a valid one, even though he had no such knowledge, if, after he regained consciousness, the same was not promptly disaffirmed by him." The only evidence of any ratification of the release consisted in the fact that the plaintiff had in some manner disposed of the money paid him in consideration of the release, and we think the instruction is strictly in accordance with the law as laid down by this court upon the former appeal, and pointedly presented the issue of fact made by the testimony. The two important questions upon this branch of the case were: Was the plaintiff mentally capable of contracting when he signed the release; and, second, did he expend or retain the money paid him after he became conscious of the source from which he obtained it, and after he was capable of understanding the nature and consequences of the contract he had made. The charge is not subject to the objections urged against it. The following...
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