Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Miller
| Decision Date | 02 June 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 1133.,1133. |
| Citation | 64 S.W.2d 1076 |
| Parties | PANHANDLE & S. F. RY. CO. v. MILLER. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Scurry County Court; John E. Sentell, Judge.
Suit by J. E. Miller against the Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
See, also, 44 S.W.(2d) 790.
Douthit, Mays & Perkins and Ellis K. Douthit, all of Sweetwater, for appellant.
C. F. Sentell, of Snyder, for appellee.
J. E. Miller sued Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway Company for damages as the alleged result of negligence in the handling of a shipment of 113 head of cattle from Seagraves, Tex., to Chautauqua, Kan. The jury found that defendant was guilty of negligence consisting of acts and omissions, each a proximate cause of damages aggregating $385 as follows: (a) Unloading cattle into muddy pens; (b) failure to afford plaintiff a reasonable opportunity to feed cattle en route; (c) overcrowding stock pens at Independence, Kan.; (d) loading back in cars of yearlings and two year old steers mixed. The jury further found (e) that "the actual or intrinsic value" at Chautauqua, Kan., of a yearling which died in the pens at Independence, Kan., would have been $50 if it had been delivered in the condition and at the time it should have arrived at Chautauqua, Kan.; (f) that the actual or intrinsic value at Chautauqua, Kan., of a cow which died near the unloading pens in Chautauqua, Kan., was $75; (g) that the actual or intrinsic value of a cow which it was alleged was "skinned and bruised and crippled and mashed and bones broken" would have been $75 at Chautauqua, Kan., in the condition and at the time she should have arrived, but was $40; (h) that a certain yearling which was alleged to have been "skinned, bruised, crippled, mashed and bones broken," would have been of the actual or intrinsic value of $50 at Chautauqua, Kan., in the condition and at the time it should have arrived, but was of the actual or intrinsic value of $25; (i) that the actual or intrinsic value of the remaining 100 head of cattle at Chautauqua would have been $6,070, in the condition and at the time they should have arrived, but were of the actual or intrinsic value of $5,570.
From a judgment rendered in accordance with said verdict the defendant has appealed.
In connection with the special issues submitted, the court defined "proximate cause" as "that cause which directly produces the injuries and damages, and without which the injuries and damages would not have happened, and the happening of which might reasonably have been contemplated as a natural and probable consequence." To define the term "proximate cause" so as thus to tell the jury that it is a cause "which directly produces the injuries and damages" was, in effect, to inform the jury that the words were used in their usual and ordinary sense. This, of course, was incorrect, since, if that were true, "proximate cause" would not be a legal term requiring definition or explanation of its meaning. This error in the definition is not complained of, and besides was in favor of appellant. Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Bufkin (Tex. Civ. App.) 46 S.W.(2d) 714.
One of the characteristic differences between the meaning of "proximate cause" as a legal term and its common and ordinary meaning is that the former need not be the direct and immediate cause. Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Rowland, 90 Tex. 365, 38 S. W. 756. On the contrary, it may operate through one or more intervening causes. The only other distinguishing characteristic deemed necessary for a jury to know in order to enable them to answer, whether or not any particular act or omission was or was not a proximate cause of a particular injury is that such act or omission should reasonably have been foreseen as likely to cause some such injury.
Appellant complains of the definition given in two respects; namely, (1) "because it fails to apply the standard of ordinary care and prudence to the element of foreseeability," and (2) "because it wholly ignores the element of causation and wholly ignores the element of interruption of causation." We are unable to sanction a proposition that "ordinary care and prudence" is an element of "foreseeability" which in turn is an element of "proximate cause." "Ordinary care" is the test of the existence or not of negligence. Any inquiry as to proximate cause presupposes the existence of negligence, and therefore, of course, the existence of a failure to exercise ordinary care. We think that, after a jury has determined issues of negligence and therein have found that, in certain acts or omissions, the defendant failed to exercise that degree of care and prudence which an ordinarily prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances, it is sufficient, in order to enable them to further determine whether such acts or omissions were proximate causes of certain injuries, that they be informed that, to be such, the acts or omissions must have been such that it could reasonably have been foreseen that some such injury would likely result. The definition in question did that. It would have been better for the definition or explanation to have advised the jury to the effect that the proximate cause was not necessarily the immediate cause. We cannot say that even that was not implied in the definition given.
That which is denominated in the second objection as "the element of causation," whatever that may mean, must, it seems to us, be included in the usual and ordinary meaning of the word "cause," which requires no definition or explanation of its meaning. As to "interruption of causation" referred to as an element of proximate cause, it occurs to us that, when a cause is interrupted, it simply ceases to further operate as a cause. A cause interrupted before any injury therefrom resulted could not be a cause of anything thereafter happening. If, as we presume, the...
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...the injury was such as ought reasonably to have been anticipated as a consequence of the act.' In Panhandle & S. F. Railway Co. v. Miller, Tex.Civ.App., 64 S.W.2d 1076, 1077, the appellant complained of the usual definition of proximate cause given in the court's charge because it failed 't......
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Texas Public Utilities Corporation v. Martin, 14023.
...App., 121 S.W.2d 334, the decision in the Bufkin case was noted. Also the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals in Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Miller, 64 S.W.2d 1076, in which it was stated that the definition given in the Bufkin case was favorable to the defendant. The court also cited th......
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...for writ of error was dismissed by the Supreme Court in that case. Again, defendant relies upon the case of Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Miller, Tex.Civ.App., 64 S.W.2d 1076, but in that case the judgment was affirmed, notwithstanding the erroneous instruction. In that case the court took o......