Waterman Lumber Co. v. Beatty
| Decision Date | 04 February 1920 |
| Docket Number | (No. 3254.) |
| Citation | 218 S.W. 363 |
| Parties | WATERMAN LUMBER CO. v. BEATTY. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Action by Dave Beatty against the Waterman Lumber Company. A judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals (204 S. W. 448), and defendant brings error. Judgment of the district court and Court of Civil Appeals affirmed.
F. H. Prendergast, of Marshall, for plaintiff in error.
T. W. Davidson, of Marshall, for defendant in error.
The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed a judgment in favor of defendant in error against plaintiff in error for damages for personal injuries.
Plaintiff in error attacks the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals, to the effect that there was no error in that portion of the trial court's charge wherein the jury were authorized to return a verdict for defendant in error, if they believed that at the time of his injury, on or about the 9th day of May, 1917, defendant in error was a minor under the age of 15 years, and if they further believed that his injuries were received on account of being employed by plaintiff in error to labor about the manufacturing establishment of plaintiff in error, using dangerous machinery.
The writ of error was granted because we were inclined to believe that the charge was erroneous, in not requiring a finding that the employment of defendant in error was the proximate cause of his injury. There is no doubt that it is essential to the maintenance of an action for damages for a personal injury, founded on the violation of a statute, to establish, not only a violation of the statute, but that the violation was the proximate cause of the injury. Though the violation of the statute would be negligence per se, the action would fail without a showing of proper causal connection between the negligence and the injury. Shearman & Redfield, Law of Negligence (Street's Ed.) § 27; T. & P. Ry. Co. v. Bigham, 90 Tex. 225, 38 S. W. 162; Spokane & Inland R. R. v. Campbell, 241 U. S. 510, 36 Sup. Ct. 683, 60 L. Ed. 1125; Stirling v. Bettis Mfg. Co. (Civ. App.) 159 S. W. 916; Elk Cotton Mills v. Grant, 140 Ga. 727, 79 S. E. 836, 48 L. R. A. (N. S.) 656. It follows that there was the same necessity for a proper application of the thoroughly settled law of proximate cause in this case as in the ordinary negligence case involving no violation of a statute.
However, plaintiff in error is not in a position to ask a reversal because of any defect in the charge, in not requiring the jury to find that defendant in error's injury was the proximate result of the alleged negligence. For the trial was governed by article 1971 of Vernon's Sayles' Texas Civil Statutes, under which all objections not presented to the charge must be considered as waived. The single objection to the charge under consideration was that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding for defendant in error on the ground stated in the charge. Clearly this objection did not call the court's attention to any necessity for further findings under the law of proximate cause than those required by the charge.
Plaintiff in error assigns error on the refusal to peremptorily direct a verdict in its favor and on the refusal to grant it a new trial, upon the ground that the uncontradicted evidence showed that the injuries of defendant in error were not received on account of his being employed by plaintiff in error to labor in or about a manufacturing establishment using dangerous machinery. Our decision of these assignments is largely controlled by our interpretation of section 1 of the act of March 13, 1911, regulating child labor. General Laws of 32d Legislature, p. 75. The applicable portion of the section declared it a misdemeanor to employ a child under the age of 15 years "to labor in or about any manufacturing or other establishment using dangerous machinery."
The Waterman Lumber Company, plaintiff in error, is a corporation engaged in the manufacture of lumber, owning...
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...McFerrin, 156 Tex. 69, 291 S.W.2d 931. See also Mundy v. Pirie-Slaughter Motor Co., 146 Tex. 314, 206 S.W.2d 587; Waterman Lumber Co. v. Beatty, 110 Tex. 225, 218 S.W. 363; San Antonio & A.P.R. Co. v. Bowles, 88 Tex. 634, 32 S.W. 880. There is no merit in the above mentioned objection to th......
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