Watson v. H. & T. C. R'y Co.

Citations

• 58 Tex. 434
• 1883 Tex. LEXIS 43

Syllabus

<p>1. Railway company.—One accepting employment from a railway company to assist in operating trains is bound by an established usage or custom of the company in regard to the duties required of him. If the usage in a particular case imposes on him a duty extra hazardous, and in its performance he sustains injury, the burden is on him to show that the existence of the established usage had been concealed from him by the company.</p> <p>2. Railway company—Removing damaged cabs.—The duty of removing damaged cars to the repairing shops of a railway company may be imposed on any employee who will assume the risk. If a brakeman accepts service from a company whose usage and custom it is to require of its brakemen to couple defective or broken cars, so that they may be removed for repairs, he will be held to have assumed the risk incident to guch employment.</p> <p>3. Charge op court.— A charge of the court which in effect assumed as matter of law that the placing of a car on aside track, or marking on it “ont of order,” was sufficient to charge an ordinary man engaged in coupling it with notice of its damaged condition and the consequent extra risk of coupling it, held error.</p> <p>4. Usage.—A brakeman on a railway, injured by coupling a damaged car, cannot secure exemption from the consequences of a custom which required the car to be marked “out of order,” which was done in the particular case, by showing his inability to read.</p>