Court Opinion

ID: 9638839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:55:57.340395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:10.095764
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
Appellant urges that our opinion understates the facts wherein it states that the misconduct statement was not discussed. Appellant has copied testimony from the 251 page record of the misconduct hearing, which is claimed to show discussion of the misconduct statement by eleven jurors. Appellant also calls 'our attention to the fact that he requested a finding about discussion, which the trial court refused to make on the grounds that its findings were already full and complete.
The court’s findings include the following: “Yet plaintiff * * * attributes to Allerkamp the statement that Gring and Crawford, said, ‘Well it doesn’t make no difference how we vote, if we vote no, he will get the money anyhow,’ and refers the Court to page 16 N. T. (Statement of Facts for motion for new trial) where it is found that the witness did so testify, but on the same page he also said that he didn’t think that they (Crawford and Gring) said that. * * * Without pointing them out here, I find that these same characteristics apply to -the testimony of other jurors offered as witnesses by plaintiff.” There is a direct finding that Gring did make the misconduct statement. There is another direct finding that Crawford did not make such a statement.
We construe the findings as stating that only certain named persons committed the acts of misconduct, and that the other jurors did not commit them. The court illustrated the reason for such findings by alluding to juror Allerkamp’s testimony as above explained. To illustrate the trial court’s point further, the juror Groce testified that the jury engaged in an extensive discussion. He said, “* * * this thing was all discussed around amongst all the jurors, they all had a say in it.” But when the testimony is read in context it shows that the juror was speaking about the jury’s consideration of the facts with reference to whether the defendant railroad had been negligent, rather than the mis'conduct statement.
Some of the testimony can not be explained in such a manner, however. The juror Gomez, for example, testified that the jury argued and discussed the misconduct matter for about thirty-five or forty-five minutes. On the other hand, other jurors stated it was mentioned only once or twice. Page and Zamora, the hold-out jurors, testified to extensive discussions with juror Crawford, and yet the trial court found as a positive fact that Crawford did not make the misconduct statement at all. Credibility is determined by the trial court. Price v. Biscoe, 141 Tex. 159, 170 S.W.2d 729, 731; Sproles Motor Freight Lines v. Judge, Tex.Civ.App., 123 S.W.2d 919, 927.
The misconduct in the case reduces itself to an issue of whether there was discussion, and if so whether it was much or little discussion — whether the misconduct was-merely or seriously present. Some jurors stated that there was discussion, one said he heard nothing, others said they heard varying amounts of mention or discussion of the misconduct statement. The best guide we have with respect to the occurrence of misconduct is found in the trial' court’s findings. Barrington v. Duncan, 140 Tex. 510, 169 S.W.2d 462, 465; Monkey *497Grip Rubber Co. v. Walton, 122 Tex. 185, 53 S.W.2d 770.
The statements involved in this case— that certain special issues are immaterial— have been treated by many decisions as misconduct in the nature of discussions of law contrary to the charge of the court. Actually, on close examination, however, such statements are hybrid in nature and difficult to classify. If regarded as discussions of the law, it is misconduct; but such statements also partake of the nature of speculations and illogical reasoning processes of the jury, which, because mental operations may not be probed, is not misconduct, at all. Maddox v. Texas Indemnity Ins. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 224 S.W.2d 495.
We treat the statements as misconduct, but in doing so and in measuring the prejudice, we are concerned not with possibilities but with probabilities. To measure probabilities, a misconduct trial must be placed in its proper setting — as a fragment of a greater trial. See Texas Power & Light Co. v. Hering, 148 Tex. 350, 224 S.W.2d 191; Smallwood v. Edmiston, Tex.Civ.App., 246 S.W.2d 220, 223. We must bear in mind that this is not a case where new evidence was injected into the jury deliberations. In passing on the probabilities as regards the reason that the jurors voted as they did, we are charged with the duty of considering not only the proofs of overt acts, but also the whole record. Rule 327.
The plaintiff read thirteen pages of pleading to the jury, eleven of which asserted fault and violations of duty by the defendant. Twelve particularized grounds of negligence were stated. The defendant denied fault in four pages. The plaintiff took the witness stand and remained there for almost three full days, relating the nature of the accident. Twenty-eight witnesses were called, mostly by the defendant, who testified on the various phases of fault or its absence, in a record developed during three weeks of trial, comprising more than 1000 pages. An additional 800 pages were used to record the medical testimony of twenty-one medical experts. To prove various phases of negligence, the rotten board, which plaintiff claimed broke causing him to fall, was introduced in evidence. Pictures of all the railroad cars involved and of the railroad yards, plats drawn to scale showing everything within and about the Southern Pacific yards, and profiles showing grades and elevations for the railroad tracks in question were introduced, bearing on the alleged fault of the defendant railroad. The court submitted twenty-nine issues, twenty-seven of which inquired about fault. The attorneys argued the case for a full day, and the jury deliberated eighteen hours. The jury, in each issue it answered, found against the plaintiff as to the defendant’s fault.
With that perspective, we do not consider it reasonably probable that the jurors, swept aside as immaterial and unimportant, all the three weeks of legal combat over the presence or absence of fault; that they counted as unnecessary and purposeless all the proofs of fault and noñfault; and that they considered the court’s inquiry and counsel’s urgings with reference to the fault issues as idle curiosity. To conclude that a few minutes of wandering by a jury, in pursuit of a lay opinion or speculation that fault is immaterial, has the effect of vitiating all the pleadings, proofs, arguments, charge and issues, in effect, assumes*the existence of a nonoperative jury system..
The probabilities in this case are that the jury felt the force of the trial, that the-plaintiff failed to prove his case and the defendant succeeded in proving its defense.
Appellant states that we should retax costs, which we , shall sustain. Appellant appealed on the single point of jury misconduct, and fox that reason omitted the-testimony of twenty-one doctors from the statement of facts. Appellee demanded' that this be included in the statement of facts. Since it was irrelevant to the appeal, $429.50 of the costs are taxed against the appellee, and the balance of the costs are taxed against appellant.
The motion for rehearing is overruled..