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

• Decision Date: 01 June 1921
• Docket Number: (No. 216-3339.)
• Citation: 231 S.W. 714
• Parties: STEED et ux. v. GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

231 S.W. 714

STEED et ux. v. GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO.

(No. 216-3339.)

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section B.

June 1, 1921.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Sixth Supreme Judicial District.

Action by S. A. Steed and wife against the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiffs was reversed and rendered by the Court of Civil Appeals (209 S. W. 772), and plaintiffs bring error. Judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed.

B. Q. Evans, of Greenville, and W. A. Shields, of Eastland, for plaintiffs in error.

Dinsmore, McMahan & Dinsmore, of Greenville, for defendant in error.

POWELL, J.

S. A. Steed and his wife, Mrs. Lena Steed, sued the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railway Company, in the district court of Hunt county, Tex., for $15,000, which they allege as the damages accruing to them by reason of personal injuries sustained by Mrs. Steed while a passenger on one of the company's trains on the afternoon of April 25, 1916, between Garland and Celeste, Tex. Upon the theory, as alleged, that the conductor, in obstructing the aisle as he did, was guilty of negligence which proximately caused Mrs. Steed to fall as she did, the plaintiffs recovered judgment against the defendant for $4,000. The judgment was based upon a general verdict of the jury. From said judgment, the railway company perfected its appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals, where the judgment of the district, court was reversed and rendered in favor of defendant in error. See 209 S. W. 772.

While Mrs. Steed's testimony on practically all material points is at variance with all the other evidence, including the testimony given by disinterested witnesses, the Court of Civil Appeals, in deference to the verdict of the jury, found the following facts:

"On the afternoon of April 25, 1916, appellee Mrs. Steed, then a passenger on one of appellant's trains, while walking from the front end to the rear end of the car she was in, fell to the floor thereof, and thereby was injured. Her account of the accident was, substantially, as follows: The conductor was at about the middle of the car, standing in the aisle, bent over, talking to some one, as she approached him. When she got near to him he straightened up, looked at her, and then again bent over toward the person he was talking to, thereby obstructing the aisle, she said, so that she could not pass on. She endeavored to stop, intending to wait in the aisle until the conductor `got ready to let her pass,' but, instead, because the train was moving rapidly in a direction opposite to the one in which she was moving, lost her balance and fell to the floor. At the time she fell she was so close to the conductor, she said, that she `could have touched him.' If he had not stooped over as he did, she further said, she could have gone `around him and scrouged by him.'"

Based upon the findings of fact just set out, the Court of Civil Appeals held:

"Keeping in mind the rule that required appellant's conductor to use the care a very cautious, prudent, and competent person would have used for Mrs. Steed's safety when he saw her walking toward him in the aisle of the car (Ry. Co. v. Halloren, 53 Tex. 46, 37 Am. Rep. 744; St. John v. Ry. Co., 80 S. W. 235), we nevertheless are of the opinion the trial court erred when he refused appellant's request that he instruct the jury to return a verdict in its favor; for we do not think the facts proven warranted a finding that said conductor acted as such a person would not have acted. We think a very cautious, prudent, and competent person reasonably would not have expected or foreseen that injury to Mrs. Steed would result from his obstructing the aisle as the conductor did, and therefore we think that the injury she suffered should have been regarded as due to an accident for which appellant was not responsible. Ry. Co. v. Brown, 75 S. W. 807."

There was only one allegation of negligence in this case, and that was the act of the conductor in blocking the aisle. No allegation of negligence was based either on the rough handling of the train, if it gave her a shove, or the presence of foreign articles in the aisle, if she was caused to fall. As a matter of fact, the accident occurred in an ordinary chair car, apparently equipped in the ordinary manner, and constructed in the usual way. There is no proof that the train was handled roughly, or that any foreign obstacle in the aisle caused her to fall. Again, there is neither allegation nor proof that the conductor, in leaning forward, struck the plaintiff, or touched her at all and caused her to fall. As a matter of fact, she never touched the conductor. She says, herself, she could have touched him. But she did not do so. In her pleadings, she avers that she was within about two seats of the conductor when the accident occurred. She never did testify just how far, in distance, she was from him. She is very indefinite in that regard. However, many witnesses do testify rather accurately on that point, and the reasonable conclusion from all the testimony is that she was from three to six feet distant from the conductor when she fell.

It is the well-settled law of this state that a person is only liable for such injuries as might reasonably have been anticipated as the natural result of his acts. The rule has been clearly stated by our Supreme Court in several leading cases, as follows:

In case of Seale v. Railway Co., 65 Tex. 274, 57 Am. Rep. 602, that court says:

"When a defendant has violated a duty imposed upon him by the common law, he should be held liable to every person injured, whose injury is the natural and probable consequence of the misconduct; and that the liability extends to such injuries as might reasonably have been anticipated, under ordinary circumstances, as the natural and probable result of the wrongful act."

We quote further from the same case, as follows:

"That one exercising due care, and incurring no risks, in extinguishing a fire, should have the flames communicated to her clothes, and thereby lose her life, is something so improbable that the anticipation of it should not be charged to any one under such circumstances. Such a thing might happen, but it would be only from some casualty which could not possibly be foreseen; and, in such cases, as we have seen, the original negligence cannot be regarded as the proximate cause of the injury."

Justice Gaines speaks as follows in case of Railway Co. v. Bigham, 90 Tex. 223, 38 S. W. 162:

"Ought the agents of the company to have foreseen that, as a result of the imperfect fastening of the gate, the injury, or any injuries similar in character, would probably result? In our opinion, nothing short of prophetic ken could have anticipated the happening of the combination of events which resulted in the injury to the person of the plaintiff. The act of the defendant in permitting the fastening to its gate to become insecure was in itself lawful; and since it was clearly out of the range of reasonable probability that an injury to the person of any one should result, it should be held as a matter of law that the negligence of the company gave no right of action for such injuries."

Coming on down to later decisions, we also refer to a very able opinion by our present Chief Justice Phillips, in the case of Railway Co. v. Bennett, 110 Tex. 262, 219 S. W. 198, as follows:

"Under the authority of Seale v. Railway Co., 65 Tex. 274, 57 Am. Rep. 602, and Railway Co. v. Bigham, 90 Tex. 223, 38 S. W. 162, the negligence of the defendant's employés in the origin of the fire cannot be justly regarded as the proximate cause of the injury to Bennett. The test of this question is, ought the defendant and its agents to have reasonably foreseen that as the consequence of the negligence which caused the explosion in the tank car, the injury to Bennett, or like injury to some other employé in his situation, would probably result? In the language of Judge Gaines' opinion in the Bigham case, nothing short of prophetic ken could have anticipated the happening of the combination of events which resulted in Bennett's becoming overheated. No one standing at the stage of the entire happening which had to do with the gas explosion in the tank car could have regarded it as other than a bare possibility, at best, that at a later period of a fire thus produced in an open...