Court Opinion

ID: 9833880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:07:00.923839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:08.452797
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellees have furnished us a copy of a recent opinion by the Commission of Appeals in the ease of Texas Co. v. Mrs. L. A. Ramsower et al., 7 S.W.(2d) 872, not yet [officially] published, and insists that our holding in the original opinion that the trial court erred in not defining “paying quantities” and “due diligence” is in conflict with a holding in that case. We shall therefore develop this point more fully than we did in the original opinion.
In the case of Texas Co. v. Ramsower it was held that an objection to the court’s charge on the ground that it failed to instruct the jury on the measure of damages presents no error, unless the complaining party prepared and presented to the trial court a charge on the subject. The ground upon which the holding seems to rest is that the request was not a request for submission of a special issue, but was for a charge on the law of the case.
In this case a different question is presented. Article 2189, R. S. 1925, provides:
“In submitting special issues the court shall submit such explanations and definitions of legal terms as shall be necessary to enable the jury to properly pass upon and render a verdict on such issues.”
The duty to define legal terms is statutory, and it has been uniformly held by the Supreme Court, so far as we are advised, that an objection to a charge on the ground of failure to include definitions of legal terms employed therein is all that is required to preserve the question for review. Since our original opinion was handed down, there has been published an opinion by the Commission of Appeals, which was adopted by the Supreme Court, conclusively disposing of the question here presented. The case in which that opinion was written is Robertson & Mueller v. Holden, 1 S.W.(2d) 570. It is there held that failure of the trial court to define a legal term is reversible error, where specific objection was made to the charge on account of such failure, even though the party objecting to such charge failed to prepare and request a special charge relative to such term. To our minds that decision forecloses this question.
The reference of the Commission, in the opinion in the case of Texas Co. v. Ram-sower, to the decision of the Port Worth Court of Appeals upon a former appeal of this case has been called to our attention. There is nothing in this reference which, to our minds, would give to the opinion of the Port Worth court any interpretation inconsistent with that which we have given it.
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.
FUNDERBURK, J., not sitting.