Court Opinion

ID: 9777132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:00:00.410734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:49.262258
License: Public Domain

PRESLAR, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the judgment of the trial Court.
The writer is of the opinion that there is some support in the evidence for the trial Court’s presumed finding of negligence; under such circumstances, the appellate Court must affirm.
In the absence of findings of fact and conclusions of law, it is assumed on appeal that the Court found every fact necessary to sustain the judgment, if such factual propositions were raised by the pleadings and supported by the evidence, Renfro Drug Co. v. Lewis, 149 Tex. 507, 235 S.W.2d 609 (1950), and the judgment will be affirmed on any legal theory that finds support in the evidence, Bishop v. Bishop, 359 S.W.2d 359 (Tex.1962).
The evidence is that where the Appellee fell, someone had broken a bottle on the floor, that the floor was sort of oily, and that somebody had tried to clean it up but there was some glass left on the floor. We have, then, the dangerous condition of the oily floor with glass and the presumed finding of the Court that it had been on the floor a sufficient amount of time that, in the exercise of diligence, Appellant should have known that it was there. That makes out a cause of action for negligence and supports the Court’s judgment. H.E.B. Food Stores v. Slaughter, cited by the majority, so holds and the majority opinion is in conflict with it. There, water on the floor was “dirt streaked as if someone had swept through the water. We believe that a proper inference can be based upon this evidence that the defendant knew the water was on the floor or that it had been there long enough so that the defendant should have known about it.” Later in the opinion, the Court said:
“On the basis of all the foregoing we believe that there was circumstantial evidence in the record to the effect that the wet condition of the floor was known to at least the one employee who attempted to sweep up the water.”
Here, the evidence is direct, not a matter of inference, that “somebody had tried to clean it up.” That raises a very logical inference, which the trial Court presumably found, that such cleaning up would be attempted by the store owner or employees whose job and duty it was to clean the store.
The real point and purpose of this dissent is not the strength or weakness of the evidence above discussed, but rather the review of it by this Court. This Court is not here making an original determination of the ultimate facts from the evidence; the trial Court has done that; we are reviewing those findings. It matters not that we might have reached a different conclusion, and we are not at liberty to substitute our findings for those of the trial Court. These well established rules govern the review of this case so that I conclude that under the record, this Court must affirm the judgment.
In James v. Drye, 159 Tex. 321, 320 S.W.2d 319 at 323 (1959), the Supreme Court stated the rule:
“On appeal from an order overruling a plea of privilege every reasonable intendment must be resolved in favor of the trial court’s judgment * * *
This case has been followed and cited in so many cases that an entire column of the citator is filled by them.
Our Supreme Court in the Renfro Drug case, supra 235 S.W.2d at 613, said:
“ * * * In seeking to determine whether there, is any evidence to support the judgment and the implied findings of fact incident thereto ‘it is proper to consider only that evidence most favorable to the issue and to disregard entirely that which is opposed to it or contradictory in its nature’ * * *
I would affirm the judgment of the trial Court overruling the plea of privilege.