Sabine & East Texas Railway Co. v. Hadnot

Citations

• 67 Tex. 503
• 4 S.W. 138
• 1887 Tex. LEXIS 914

Syllabus

<p>1. Pleading.—In an action to recover damages against a railway company for injuries resulting from its failure to construct its road as required by Revised Statutes, Article 4171, negligence and want of skill in its construction need not be alleged in totiedem verbis, if the petition contain distinct averments from which the deduction would necessarily follow that such negligence or want of skill existed.</p> <p>3. Testimony op Experts.—The testimony of scientific railway engineers .that they had constructed a road bed skillfully, and in accordance with scientific rules, should not—in a suit for damages claimed on account of injury to crops caused by water being backed up by the road bed after a rainfall, not extraordinary in its character—prevail* over the testimony of others, if such other testimony is believed by the jury, to the effect that the road bed did in fact cause the injury.</p> <p>3. Begkligehce—Overflow.—An overflow occurring on the line of railroad bed built a few years afterwards, followed by two other overflows occurring after the road was built, and within nine months of each other, tended so strongly to the conclusion that such overflows might reasonably have been expected, that a verdict for damages caused by the railway bed damming up the water and destroying crops, was not set aside.</p> <p>4. Excessive Verdict—Practice.—The Supreme Court declined to consider whether a verdict for damages, clearly excessive, presented a ease where a remittitur was proper to correct the excess (after the remittitur of the excess had been entered), when no specific assignment of errors was found complaining of the excessive verdict.</p>