T. & P. R'y Co. v. Carlton

Citations

• 60 Tex. 397
• 1883 Tex. LEXIS 347

Syllabus

<p>1. Statute construed.— The statute (Rev. Stat., 2939) does not change the rules in any respect, which are well recognized, for the determination of the liability of a railway company either to a passenger or an employee.</p> <p>2. Master and servant.— While it may be wrongful as to the parent to employ a minor aged eighteen years in a business contrary to the wish of the parent, yet this does not deprive the son of the power to make a contract by which he may obtain necessary employment, and a contract so made creates between a railway company making it, with the son, and the son, the relation of master and servant. The duty of the former, however, in reference to care towards the latter, increases in proportion to his want of capacity. Following Railroad Co. v. Miller, 51 Tex., 274, and Hamilton v. G. H. & S. A. R’y Co., 54 Tex., 562.</p> <p>3. Same.— To deny to such a minor, on whose labor a helpless father depended for a support, as in this case, the right to contract and to establish thereby the relation of master and servant, would be to deny the right to live by honest toil.</p> <p>4. Negligence — Charge of court.—A charge of the court in a suit for damages by the father of such a minor, who was fatally injured in coupling cars while employed on a railroad, which ignored the fact that the minor was an employee, and which left the jury to infer that the simple fact of hiring the deceased and putting him to work in a place and at a business in which his father did not wish him to labor, was of itself such negligence of the railway company as would entitle the father to recover, is error.</p> <p>5. Railway company.— No railway company is required to receive and haul a car of another road which is so defectively constructed or otherwise unsafe as manifestly to imperil the life or limb of an employee.</p>