Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Barber

• Decision Date: 27 March 1895
• Citation: 30 S.W. 500
• Parties: TEXAS & P. RY. CO. v. BARBER.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

30 S.W. 500

TEXAS & P. RY. CO. v. BARBER.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

March 27, 1895.

Appeal from Eastland county court; W. G. Davenport, Judge.

Action by J. J. Barber against the Texas & Pacific Railway Company. There was a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

Scott & Brelsford, for appellant.

Reasons for Reversal.

STEPHENS, J.

The recovery in this case was for damages to a car of horses carried by appellant and connecting lines from Eastland, Tex., to Greenville, Ala. The charge of the court correctly stated the measure of damages to be the difference in the market value of the horses at the point of destination in the condition in which they arrived and in the condition in which they should have arrived; but the evidence of value and loss was not confined or even directed to that point. Appellee relied entirely upon his own testimony to establish the depreciated value of the horses, resulting from the injuries inflicted; and, though he accompanied them and disposed of them at the point of destination, this one sentence contains the sum of his evidence in relation to the market value there: "I do not know the market value, or if there was one, at Greenville, Alabama." Over repeated objections of appellant, the court permitted him to testify as to prices paid by him in Eastland for some of the horses, as to offers made to him at Marshall, Tex., for some of them, and as to what he considered them worth severally and collectively, and as to how much he considered them damaged severally and collectively. This method of proof ignored the more certain and well-established standard for ascertaining the value of marketable property, as set forth in the charge. Horses or cattle shipped to market are clearly not of the class of unmarketable property the value of which must depend upon a variety of circumstances, such as its cost, peculiar uses to the owner, and the like. Nor is the owner of such marketable property permitted to state generally his conclusions as to the extent of his loss, as was done in this case, stating that he considered he was damaged $850 on the car load, etc. Where the owner or other witness shows that he is acquainted with the market at the place fixed by law as the standard of value, and also with the property, he may then, of course, give his opinion of the value there of such property in its differing conditions of which he has knowledge, and thereby furnish the data from which the jury may assess the damages. For authorities...