McShane

This is an appeal from a judgment entered upon a jury verdict against plaintiffs, after an eight-day trial. The action was one seeking damages arising from an automobile collision in the State of Texas.

The facts, viewed most favorably to respondents, reveal that appellants were west of Childress, Texas, traveling easterly at about 12 ¡30 p.m. on July 18, 1963, at 55 to 60 miles per hour, when they noticed respondents’ automobile traveling westerly on the same two-lane highway, some 40 to 100 yards ahead. Respondent Barbara L. Cleaver was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident. Her husband had driven from about 7:30 a.m. until 10 a.m., when she began to drive. They had both slept about seven hours the night before. She had passed through Childress, Texas, and had stopped for the signal lights there. The automobile she was driving was equipped with almost new tires, and an air-conditioner was operating at the time. There had been nothing unusual about the operation of the car until about five miles west of Childress, when she heard a loud noise like a gunshot. The hood bounced up and down and the steering wheel spun to the left, pulling the car across the highway in spite…