Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Whitsett
Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Whitsett
Opinion of the Court
This appeal is from a judgment for the sum of $4,500 in favor of the appellee for damages resulting from personal injuries sustained by his wife while a passenger on one of the appellant’s trains. It is alleged that the ear in which the appel-lee’s wife was riding was insufficiently heated, and that in consequence she contracted a cold, which finally produced paralysis of the left side of her face, and other injuries mentioned.
“The ‘proximate cause’ of an injury, as that term is herein used, means an efficient cause, or that which in natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any new or intervening cause produces the injury, and without which it would not have occurred. In order to constitute proximate cause of an injury the act or omission complained of must be of such a nature that a very careful, cautious, and prudent person might anticipate that some injury might result therefrom.”
The objection to this paragraph of the court’s charge is that it is not clear, and would probably be understood to mean that | “proximate cause” is either an efficient cause or a cause that in “natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any new or intervening cause” produced the injury. In other words, the objection is based upon the contention that the court submits two separate and distinct definitions of “proximate cause.” It may well be doubted if these stereotyped definitions of “proximate cause” furnish juries any aid in determining that issue. In the case before us the important inquiry was, not whether the failure of the appellant to heat the car was the proximate or the remote cause, but whether it, in fact, was a cause of the injury. If that failure was the result of negligence, and brought on the conditions from which the appellee’s wife suffered, there could be no question about its being the direct and responsible cause. There was no necessity for the jury to consider the refinements regarding the distinctions between proximate and remote causes. Moreover, we are inclined to the opinion that the second subdivision of the first sentence beginning after the disjunctive conjunction “or” was intended to be explanatory of that which preceded, rather than the giving of a different definition of “proximate cause.” The charge was not subject to the objections made.
Other assignments attack the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain_ the verdict of the jury. It is unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of the testimony in detail, but a careful examination has convinced us that these assignments are without merit.
The assignment is overruled, and the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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