Texas Pacific Railway Company v. Bigger

• Decision Date: 13 December 1915
• Docket Number: No. 342,342
• Citation: 60 L.Ed. 310,239 U.S. 330,36 S.Ct. 127
• Parties: TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. J. T. BIGGER et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

239 U.S. 330

36 S.Ct. 127

60 L.Ed. 310

TEXAS & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v J. T. BIGGER et al.

No. 342.

Submitted November 30, 1915.

Decided December 13, 1915.

Messrs. George Thompson and T. D. Cobbs for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. H. C. Carter and Perry J. Lewis for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

Action for personal injuries, brought by J. T. Bigger against plaintiff in error and the International & Great Northern Railway Company and the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, & Southern Railway Company in the state district court of Bexar county, Texas.

The case made by Bigger's pleading was this:

Bigger was a passenger upon the Texas & Pacific Railway Company's train on a ticket from San Antonio, Texas, to Owensboro, Kentucky, and return, having purchased the ticket from the International & Great Northern Railway Company, at San Antonio, Texas. A partnership was alleged between the companies.

Bigger was returning from Owensboro to San Antonio, and was compelled and required to leave the train at Longview during a very severe downpour of rain at a place where there was no protection. His clothes became thoroughly drenched with rain, and he was required to ride in them so drenched until he reached San Antonio at about 10 o'clock at night. As a result of such exposure and wetting he became seriously ill.

At the time the Texas & Pacific reached the state at Longview there was in the train a car destined to San Antonio, on the line of the International & Great Northern Railway, of which the employees of the Texas & Pacific knew, but they neglect to inform Bigger of the fact and give him an opportunity to transfer to such car.

It was charged in his complaint that such facts constituted negligence on the part of the company and its employees.

In accordance with a petition by the Texas & Pacific Company the case was removed to the United States district court for the western district of Texas. There an amended petition or complaint was filed, suggesting Bigger's death, and his wife and six children were made parties plaintiff.

The St. Louis, Iron Mountain, & Southern Railway Company filed a separate demurrer and answer.

The International & Great Northern Railway Company and the Texas & Pacific Railway Company joined in a general demurrer and in an answer to the merits. Subsequently both of the latter companies were given leave to amend and availed themselves of it. The answer of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company contained a general demurrer, a general denial of the allegations, and set up special matters in defense. It contained no plea or exception to the jurisdiction in the court, state or Federal.

The case was continued and set for trial upon motion of defendants, and the Texas & Pacific Railway Company then filed a second amended answer, in which it set up that it was incorporated under an act of Congress, had its domicil in Dallas, Texas, that no part of its road was in Bexar county, and therefore the action was improperly brought in the latter county, and the court was without jurisdiction to try it, it being 'one arising under and involving damages for personal injury.' Insufficiency of the petition in law was also alleged and that the petition showed on its face that the company was a common carrier without any elements of partnership existing between it and the other defendants. The answer also contained general denials of the allegations of the petition, and averred besides that Bigger had ample opportunity to transfer from one coach to another, and that had he used ordinary care he would have got into the proper coach either when he first boarded the train or at some time during passage. That the railway company complied with its duty when it safely transported Bigger to Longview, and at that station its relation to him, so far as he was a passenger, terminated, as he was entitled to ride to such point and no farther.

That it stopped its train at the usual place, and the station building and shelter from rain was in close proximity to such point. That other passengers alighted and proceeded to such station building, that there was no reason why Bigger should not have done so, and that his exposure was due to his own negligence.

That his ill health and subsequent death were not caused by nor were they the result of any negligence of the company, but that he was in an extremely poor state of health, having been the victim for a long time of a tubercular infection which had so far progressed that he had been compelled to give up his work and return to San Antonio, with hope practically abandoned, and that his death was the proximate and direct result of such infection.

Upon the issues thus joined the case was tried to a jury. The court directed a verdict for all of the companies except the Texas & Pacific, against which company a verdict was returned in the aggregate amount of $15,250, the amounts awarded to the wife and children being respectively specified. Judgment was entered accordingly and affirmed by the circuit court of appeals.

A motion is made to dismiss or, alternatively, to affirm.

The motion to dismiss is overruled. The railway company is a Federal corporation and the questions raised are not frivolous.¹ We pass, therefore, to the merits.

The questions of fact must be considered as determined against the company by the verdict of the jury; that is, that Bigger was required to get off the train at Longview in a drenching rain, that the accommodations there were insufficient for the protection of passengers, that he could have been transferred to a coach attached to the train, but was not, nor was he told of it, and that the exposure resulted in his death. And, further, the verdict is conclusive as to the condition of his health and as to the expectancy from his life.

Our consideration, therefore, must be confined to the questions of law arising on giving or refusing instructions, or on some other ruling of the court. There is such other ruling. The company in its second amended answer in the district court excepted to plaintiff's petition on the ground that it showed on its face that the suit was improperly brought in Bexar county. The exception was overruled and this is assigned as error. It was not error. The petition for removal contained no reservation of a question of the jurisdiction of the state court, and after the case reached the district court there were pleadings to the merits and other action submitting to the jurisdiction. Texas & P. R.Co. v. Hill, 237 U. S. 208, 59 L. ed. 918, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 575.

There is the general contention that a verdict should have been directed for the company. The contention involves the whole case, and facts and law are so intermingled as to make the latter inseparably dependent upon the former. For instance, it is urged that Bigger did not exercise care when he boarded the train at Little Rock. He could have known, it is said, that there was an International & Great Northern coach attached to the train, and that he should have heard the announcement to passengers to transfer to that coach; and 'should at some time during the route have looked and...