Checker Cab Co. v. Cheatham
Checker Cab Co. v. Cheatham
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from a judgment non obstante veredicto rendered in favor of Hazel P. Cheatham, plaintiff, against Checker Cab Company. Checker Cab Company insists that there was evidence in support of a finding that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent in failing to keep a proper lookout.
Hazel Cheatham was driving north on Broadway in the City of San Antonio. Defendant’s cab was traveling east on Seventh Street which intersects Broadway. The evidence showed that Broadway is 45 feet wide and Seventh Street is about 35 feet wide. The point of impact was about 12 feet west of the east curb of broadway and 9 feet north of the south curb of Seventh Street. The front of defendant’s cab struck the left side of the Cheatham vehicle. Hazel Cheatham stated that the cab hit the left front door. The accident occurred after ten p. m. and the cab lights were burning. The jury found that defendant was negligent for several reasons, one of which was that he entered the intersection against a red light. This was a proximate cause of the collision.
Cab Company had the burden to prove Hazel Cheatham’s contributory negligence for failing to keep a proper lookout. Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Anglin, 99 Tex. 349, 89 S.W. 966, 2 L.R.A.,N.S., 386. When testing the evidence against a judgment non obstante veredicto, we are concerned with the no evidence rule. We must consider all the testimony in the record from the standpoint most favorable to the defendant, and the jurors are entitled to judge not only the facts proved, but the reasonable inferences which may be drawn from those facts. Shelton v. Belknap, 155 Tex. 37, 282 S.W.2d 682; Burt v. Lochausen, 151 Tex. 289, 249 S.W.2d 194; Le Master v. Fort Worth Transit Co., 138 Tex. 512, 160 S.W.2d 224.
Hazel Cheatham testified in different ways concerning the position of her car when she looked. Once she testified “That is why I didn’t see him, until I got out into the middle of the intersection.” Another time she answered that she was already into the intersection when she looked to her left and saw the cab coming. When asked when she first saw the cab, she answered, “I was about half way across the intersection.” While she testified that she looked before she entered the intersection, the jury could have rejected that testimony in favor of that which states that she was in the middle of the intersection before she looked. That would be about the place where she was actually hit, and would indicate that she saw the cab just before or at the time of the impact. This was evidence in support of the jury finding that she failed to keep a proper lookout.
The jury could draw additional inferences also from the speed and position of the cars. The cab driver testified that both cars were traveling at about the same rate
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the trial court with instructions to enter judgment for the defendant upon the verdict. Allen v. DeWinne, Tex.Civ.App., 268 S.W.2d 677, DeWinne v. Allen, 154 Tex. 316, 277 S.W.2d 95.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.