Opinion ID: 1780457
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The constitutional origin of appellate court jurisdiction over fact questions.

Text: The Texas Constitution confers upon the courts of appeals appellate jurisdiction ... under such restrictions and regulations as may be prescribed by law, and further provides that the decision of said courts shall be conclusive upon all questions of fact brought before them by appeal or error. TEX. CONST. art. V, § 6. These two clauses have independent significance, and have quite different consequences upon the allocation of jurisdiction between this court and the intermediate appellate courts. The former operates as a general grant of appellate jurisdiction, and is in fact the only clause in Article V which purports to vest judicial authority in the intermediate courts. The latter, which will be referred to as the factual conclusivity clause, functions not as a grant of authority to the courts of appeals but as a limitation upon the judicial authority of this court. Choate v. San Antonio & A.P. Ry. Co., 91 Tex. 406, 44 S.W. 69 (1898). In one of the earliest reported decisions of this court, we held that a court operating under a general grant of appellate jurisdiction had the power to review fact questions. Bailey v. Haddy, Dallam 376 (1841). Then, as now, the constitution provided that the right of trial by jury should remain inviolate. REPUB. OF TEX. CONST., Ninth Declaration of Right (1836). That same constitution vested this court with appellate jurisdiction, just as our present constitution confers such authority upon the courts of appeals. REPUB. OF TEX. CONST., art. IV, § 8. Construing the constitution and related statutes, we explicitly recognized that the grant of appellate jurisdiction empowered this court to review both fact and law questions, although we recognized that such powers might not exist in a common law court reviewing a jury-tried case. Dallam at 378. The court concluded that in a jury-tried case, its powers of review embraced those of a common law court as well as a civil law court or court of equity, subject to the restriction that the right of trial by jury should remain inviolate. Id.; see also Republic v. Smith, Dallam 407 (1841) (recognizing that the court could review both the fact and the law questions in a criminal case). In the fifty year interval between the Bailey decision and the constitutional amendments of 1891, we continued to recognize that this court had the power to review jury verdicts on factual issues. Due to the court's deference to jury verdicts in general, the cases where review actually led to reversal are far less in number than the cases where we merely acknowledged this power of review. Nonetheless, they exist. The cases where this power was apparently exercised include Hall v. Layton, 16 Tex. 262 (1856) appeal after remand 25 Tex. 204 (1860); Garvin v. Stover, 17 Tex. 292 (1856); Chandler v. Meckling, 22 Tex. 37 (1858); Carlton v. Baldwin, 22 Tex. 724 (1859) appeal after remand 27 Tex. 572 (1864); McQueen v. Fulgham, 27 Tex. 464 (1864); Willis v. Lewis, 28 Tex. 185 (1866); Weisiger v. Chisholm, 28 Tex. 780 (1866); Harnage v. Berry, 43 Tex. 567 (1875); Houston & Tex. Cent. Ry. Co. v. Knapp, 51 Tex. 569 (1879); Redus v. Burnett, 59 Tex. 576 (1883); Houston & T.C. Ry. Co. v. Schmidt, 61 Tex. 282 (1884); Dimmit v. Robbins, 12 S.W. 94 (Tex.1889); and Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Somers, 14 S.W. 779 (Tex.1890). In Somers, the court briefly summarized the nature of its authority to reverse jury verdicts on fact issues: Although this court has the power to review a case upon the facts, and to set aside a verdict which has evidence to support it, that power has been reluctantly exercised. But it is the right and duty of this court to set aside a verdict, when it is against such a preponderance of the evidence that it is clearly wrong. 14 S.W. at 779. By creating the courts of appeals and vesting them with appellate jurisdiction, the 1891 amendment to the constitution conferred upon those courts the same power over fact questions that this court exercised prior to that amendment. Choate, 44 S.W.2d at 69-70. Thus, the court below, in reviewing the jury's verdict in favor of Cropper, was possessed of the same powers that this court could previously exercise prior to 1891, the same powers alluded to in Somers. Id. In the exercise of those powers, the court below concluded that the jury's finding that Cropper was not negligent in his operation of the water wagon was so contrary to the great weight of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. 720 S.W.2d at 826. Although the court below was technically incorrect in implying that it was reviewing a jury's finding, there can be no doubt that it had the power to reverse and remand unless there is some dispositive distinction between appellate review of findings and appellate review of non-findings or failures to find.