Court Opinion

ID: 9676017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:12:19.022591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:42.644351
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
Appellant has filed a strong motion for rehearing which has received our most careful consideration.
Though the cases we cited in our original opinion do not deal directly with Art. 7589a, Vernon’s Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., they do deal with the principle of strict liability and the holding in the English case of Fletcher v. Rylands, which holding has been repudiated in the State of Texas. In deciding whether strict liability should be applied in cases coming within the statute we think the cases cited in our opinion i must be given serious consideration. In so saying we are aware that our Supreme Court in Turner v. Big Lake Oil Co., 128 Tex. 155, 96 S.W.2d 221 (1936) stated that Art. 7589a was not pleaded and therefore was not applicable. But the Supreme Court did not say that its holding would have been different if the statute had been pleaded.
Be that as it may, our decision does not rest alone on our conclusion that the rule of strict liability ought not to apply in the application of Art. 7589a. Our decision rests also upon another ground which we fear was not made plain in our original opinion. In this case the jury held that the appellee-defendant was not negligent, but the appellant-plaintiff was negligent in three particulars, each of which was a proximate cause of its own damage. It is one thing to hold that an innocent property owner who is not in any way to blame for the damage he suffered may hold his neighbor to strict liability under the statute. It is quite another thing to hold that a property owner who is not himself innocent of blame for his own damages, but who is guilty of several acts of negligence each of which was a proximate cause of his own damages, may recover his said damages *233from an adjoining property owner under the theory'of strict liability though the adjoining property owner is entirely innocent of any negligence. This is in effect allowing a party to profit by his own negligence at the expense of a neighbor who is not negligent. We cannot bring ourselves to say that the negligent party is entitled to recover against the innocent party.
At the end of our opinion we said, “It is our opinion that the jury’s findings of contributory negligence preclude a recovery by appellant.” Our use of the term “contributory negligence” was not well advised. The jury did not find appellant guilty of contributory negligence. It simply found the appellant guilty of negligence.
We are aware of authorities holding that there can be no contributory negligence as such on the part of a plaintiff in the absence of primary negligence on the part of the defendant. 40 Tex.Jur. 2d 601. But there can be primary negligence on the part of a plaintiff which negligence was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s own injuries regardless of the existence of primary negligence on the part of the defendant. And such primary negligence on the part of the plaintiff will be a bar to his recovery of damages. St. Louis, B. & M. Ry. Co. v. Moss, 203 S.W. 777 (Tex.Civ.App., San Antonio 1918, no writ); Ripley v. Dozier Construction Co., 45 S.W.2d 661 (Tex.Civ.App., Austin 1932, no writ). That is the situation we have here if we were to accept our appellant-plaintiff’s contention that negligence on the part of appellee-defendant is not an element necessary to make out a cause of action under the statute. We repeat that the jury found appellant guilty of negligence, not contributory negligence. This finding itself becomes a finding of primary negligence on the part of appellant even if we rule out negligence as a factor in appellant’s cause of action against appellee. And it leads us back to our conclusion that a property owner guilty of primary negligence proximately causing his own damages ought not even under Art. 7589a to be allowed to profit by his own negligence.
Appellant relies on Burbridge v. Rich Properties, Inc., 365 S.W.2d 657 (Tex.Civ.App., Houston 1963, no writ) and Blocher v. McArthur, 303 S.W.2d 529 (Tex.Civ.App., Austin 1957, writ ref’d n. r. e). In the Burbridge case it appears that plaintiff was not charged with negligence.
In the Blocher case it was held that appellant would have had a cause of action against appellee under Art. 7589a without the necessity of alleging negligence, and that in view of appellee’s construction of a retaining wall appellant’s negligence in the manner of the construction of their apartment was not a defense to their cause of action against appellee. We have the greatest respect for our brethren who were on the Austin court at that time but we do not believe that their holding in the Blocher case should control our holding here.
In its motion appellant seems to stress the wording of Special Issue No. 2, which inquired whether the water from the ditch which flowed into the basement by subsoil drains was the proximate cause of the damage to the equipment in question. The jury answered in the affirmative. Perhaps in preparing the charge the use of the word the in the issue was an inadvertence. In any event the court expressly instructed the jury that there might be more than one proximate cause. There was no instruction and no issue as to sole proximate cause. We do not regard the use of the word the in the issue as equivalent to the submission of sole proximate cause.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.