Court Opinion

ID: 9834152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:20:18.262218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.068424
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee presented a forceful motion for a rehearing-in this case based on the contention that appellant on the trial did not object to the court’s definition of the terms “official conduct” and “willful,” and on appeal has not presented any assignment of error complaining of such definitions, and hence under well-settled rules that need not be here repeated we were without jurisdiction to reverse the judgment on the ground we did.
 It is true that neither on the trial nor here did appellant in direct form or manner complain of the court’s definitions, but on original consultation it seemed plain that the judgment would have to be reversed on the grounds, if for no other, to wit, that the court refused to correct his charge to the jury in that it failed to require a finding that appellant had acted in bad faith and corruptly as charged. Appellant excepted to the charge on this ground, and we think the exception well, taken. The court also refused to give appellant’s special requested charge directing to find in appellant’s favor in event they found his issuance of the time checks, etc., was, as he explained, in good faith and without corrupt motives as his evidence tended to show. This also constituted error.
This being the condition, the writer was of the opinion that the faulty definitions were at the seat of the trouble; that, if corrected, the errors just above noted would surely be corrected on another trial, but that if no notice of the definitions was made the errors of definitions might again appear, there having been no objection thereto. The writer therefore went by indirection to the heart of the subject as set forth in our original opinion. The fact is, as the writer thinks, the court’s definitions constitute fundamental error and hence reviewable regardless of the want of exception and assignment of error. It is the statutory duty of the court in jury trials to deliver a written charge “on the law of the case.” The burden is on the plaintiff to establish the material allegations of his petition by a preponderance of the evidence. The plaintiff in this case expressly alleged that the acts complained of were done willfully and corruptly. The allegations were material without doubt if the authorities cited in our original opinion declare the law of the case. The charge was a general one, and it nowhere required a finding that appellant’s acts were done in bad faith and corruptly. Nor does the verdict of the jury or the judgment of the court contain such findings. Such condition of the record, in the opinion of the writer, constitutes fundamental error. See Tex. Jurisprudence, vol. 3, § 574; Speer’s Law on Special Issues, § 532.
However, the majority think it unnecessary to determine whether the error in the court’s definition is fundamental and hence express no opinion on that subject for the reason, in which the writer concurs, that the record shows that appellant in due time and form excepted to the court’s charge on the ground, among other things, that it “does not take into contemplation or does not in any wise take into consideration the defense pleaded by the defendant in that said purported time checks were only given as evidence' of the method and manner of the payment” (of the Tripp note), etc. We think this criticism of the charge well taken and that the court erred in failing to make the correction indicated.
The court also refused to give defendant’s special charge which in terms and effect submitted the defense that the time checks “were given only for the purpose of evidencing the time and amounts of the payments to be made by Ulys Tripp,” etc. We think it evidence that the court erred in refusing this charge.
It follows, all concurring, that the motion for rehearing should be overruled, and it is so ordered.