Court Opinion

ID: 9643305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:24:55.037489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.738057
License: Public Domain

POPE, Justice
(concurring).
It is a solemn moment when we overturn a general practice that has been acceptable to the bench and bar for more than a quarter of a century. The failure to exercise proper control has been repudiated as an issue in personal injury litigation though it has become a substantial part of our trial practice.1 I have failed to find any previous judicial criticism of the issue. On the contrary it has been either expressly or tacitly sanctioned by many judges who have carefully considered it.2
It is my judgment that we unduly confuse the bench and bar when we sweep aside a practice that has been approved or condoned in North East Texas Motor Lines v. Hodges, 138 Tex. 280, 158 S.W.2d 487; Schuhmacher Co. v. Holcomb, 142 Tex. 332, 177 S.W.2d 951; Blaugrund v. Gish, 142 Tex. 379, 179 S.W.2d 266; Triangle Cab Co. v. Taylor, 144 Tex. 568, 192 S.W.2d 143; Gray v. Newberry, Tex.Civ.App., 380 S.W.2d 22, 23, ref. n. r. e.; Brown v. Vigeon, Tex.Civ.App., 367 S.W.2d 727, ref. n. r. e.; Cunningham v. Suggs, Tex.Civ.App., 340 S.W.2d 369, ref. n. r. e.; Martinez v. Welcome, Tex.Civ.App., 335 S.W.2d 254, ref. n. r. e.; Choate v. Meredith, Tex.Civ.App., 330 S.W.2d 548, ref. n. r. e.; Shifiett v. Bennett Printing Co., Tex.Civ.App., 330 S.W.2d 220; Anderson v. Garza, Tex.Civ.App., 311 S.W.2d 910, ref. n. r. e.; Intges v. Dunn, Tex.Civ.App., 311 S.W.2d 877, ref. n. r. e.; Jenkins v. Hennigan, Tex.Civ.App., 298 S.W.2d 905, ref. n. r. e.; Har*651rison v. King, Tex.Civ.App., 296 S.W.2d 344, ref. n. r. e.; Serna v. Cochrum, Tex.Civ.App., 290 S.W.2d 383, ref. n. r. e.; Holly v. Bluebonnet Express Co., Tex.Civ.App., 275 S.W.2d 737, ref. n. r. e.; Fullingim v. Dunaway, Tex.Civ.App., 267 S.W.2d 483; Tripp v. Watson, Tex.Civ.App., 235 S.W.2d 677, ref. n. r. e.; Fisher v. Leach, Tex.Civ.App., 221 S.W.2d 384, ref. n. r. e.; Justiss v. Naquin, Tex.Civ.App., 137 S.W.2d 72, error dism. judg. cor.; Hampton Co. v. Joyce, Tex.Civ.App., 80 S.W.2d 1066.
The issue was viable by 1935, Hampton Co. v. Joyce, 80 S.W.2d 1066, and by 1942 it was deemed meritorious enough to receive the commendation of a unanimous court. Commissioner Brewster, in an opinion approved by the Supreme Court, said that an issue inquiring about proper control would excuse other lesser included elements. North East Texas Motor Lines v. Hodges, 138 Tex. 280, 158 S.W.2d 487. A request for the specific issues had been timely made and refused. The court wrote, “ * * * The several inquiries under consideration were merely various phases and different shades of meaning of one ultimate defensive fact issue, that is, lack of proper control of his truck by Hodges. Having given such issue once in the form of Special Issue No. 15-G, (control) * * * the trial court properly refused to repeat it twice in other language as carried in requested issues 7 (inability to stop within the range of vision) and 12.” (failure to reduce speed). The court then gave sound reasons for accepting and recommending the issue to the bench, bar, and public, saying, “It has never been the policy of the law to lengthen and complicate special issue charges by requiring trial courts to give issues that merely submit various phases or other shades of meaning of an issue already in the charge. It is required only that each controlling issue raised by the pleadings and the evidence be submitted once, fairly, simply and succinctly. Otherwise, such charge could be drawn out to interminable length confusing not alone to the jury but to court and counsel as well.” With one sentence the court could have condemned the issue, but instead, the court blessed it.
Fourteen months after the court considered Hodges, the Commission and Supreme Court again considered the issue in Schuhmacher Co. v. Holcomb, 142 Tex. 332, 177 S.W.2d 951. Commissioner Hickman wrote, “The finding that his (the plaintiff’s) failure to keep his automobile under proper control was not the sole proximate cause of the injuries includes the finding that his causing the automobile to move to and upon his left-hand side of the highway was not the sole proximate cause of the injuries. * * * In submitting the issue of whether loss of control was the sole proximate cause the charge did not confine the jury to a consideration of any particular cause of the loss of control, but the issue covered loss of control from any and all causes, which includes defective brakes.” Instead of destroying the issue, as it could have, the court said that a charge which included the control issue and left out other lesser included elements, “fairly submitted the controlling issues raised by the pleadings and evidence, as provided in Rule 279, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.” Two weeks later, the Supreme Court, through Mr. Justice Critz in Blaugrund v. Gish, 142 Tex. 379, 179 S.W.2d 266, again discussed the same issue. The court held that the control issue should not be submitted when its elements are submitted. One submission is enough. Mr. Justice Slatton in 1946 in Triangle Cab Co. v. Taylor, 144 Tex. 568, 192 S.W.2d 143, cited Blaugrund, but did not disapprove the control issue. With the Supreme Court’s several opinions before them, the bar began practicing law upon the principles announced in Hodges, Holcomb, Gish and Taylor. I would not disturb this practice.
The special issue system in Texas, for some time, has been troubled with the proliferation of issues in personal injury litigation. Fox v. Dallas Hotel Co., 111 Tex. 461, 240 S.W. 517, properly decided *652that an issue was too global when it asked whether a party was contributorily negligent, and this court, for good reasons stated in 1953 that it did not desire to depart from that settled practice. Roosth & Genecov Production Co. v. White, 152 Tex. 619, 262 S.W.2d 99. In Roosth this court first noted that personal injury charges were anomalous, because in all other classes of litigation, fewer and broader issues have been consistently approved.3 It then expressed justifiable concern about a departure from existing practices, the Fox case in particular, because it “would in our judgment cause undue confusion.” It is that same judicial restraint that I would now exercise in this case.
The genius of the common law is its capacity to solve problems, and this body of law which we have today dispatched, is a classic example. The exercise of proper control, as an issue, admittedly eliminates many other issues. It is doing and can do what nothing and nobody else has been capable of doing. That issue, as Forsyth said of the jury system itself, arose, “silently and gradually out of the usages of a state of society.” It arose, not as a result of overruling Fox, new or amended rules, actions of joint committees or acts of the legislature. It has grown up in the shadow of Fox and until now has been able to gather up many issues and simplify the charge. It is another example of the capacity of the common law to develop and preserve the jury system itself. In this case it is corrective of the chief problem of civil jury trial in Texas, a surfeit of special issues.
The problems of the special issue charge are those of profusion, conflicting answers, and confusion to the jurors. Those problems did not arise from, nor are they aggravated by, the issue on exercise of proper control. Instead of causing profusion of issues, that issue eliminates lesser included elements. Instead of causing conflicts, it is curative of them. A reading of all the cases which have discussed the issue, shows that the issue has produced no reversals by reason of conflicts. On the contrary, it has salvaged many and harmed none. Unlike other conflicting issues, any claimed conflict arising out of the exercise of proper control issue is resolved by giving effect to the narrow findings over the broader ones. Instead of confusion, it simplifies charges to the jury by shortening them. It reduces the number so the advocates can better argue their cases. Whatever confusion is produced by the issue finds its origin in a trial court’s unnecessary submission of both the proper control issue and also the more specific elements included within it. The double submission should stop, and it will when this court tells trial judges that they can exercise their own judgments in giving *653the control issue without the specific issues; or the specific issues without the control issue, hut not both.
Every reason which one can give for the elimination of the issue inquiring about the exercise of proper control, can with equal logic be given against the discovered peril, the attractive nuisance and the damage issues, as well as the broad submission of issues in all other classes of cases except negligence cases. Fox v. Dallas Hotel Co. is not violated in any of those instances.
The opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals was right when it gave effect to the specific jury findings over the finding on proper control. That is settled law. When this court goes further and holds that an objection to the control issue kills it and takes all discretion from the trial judge so that he must refuse to submit it, we have closed the •door upon our best and last opportunity for the common law to reduce the number of issues and to simplify the charge.
With that part of the majority opinion that totally eliminates the proper control issue upon objection, I respectfully dis- . agree.

. “ * * * It is usual that either the plaintiff or the defendant, or in many instances both, urge the court to submit a proper control issue * * Lambert, The Bugaboo of ‘Proper Control’, 27 Texas Bar Journal, 869.

. Chief Justice Alexander, Chief Justice Hickman, Justices Brewster, Sharp, Harvey, Holley, Critz, Slatton, Simpson, Smedley, Taylor, Norvell, Culver, W. O. Murray, Edward Smith, D. Walker, O’Quiun, Combs, Graves, Monteith, Oody, Atwood McDonald, Hall, B. L. Murray, O. Walker, Hamblen, Pope, Hunter Barrow, Anderson, Hightower, Woodruff, Bell, Werlein, Gray, Archer, Hughes, Wilson, Frank McDonald, Tirey, Han-ning, Ohadick, Charles Barrow, Collings, Grissom, Walter, Stephenson, McNeill and Davis,

. Hough v. Grapotte, 127 Tex. 144, 90 S.W.2d 1090, (domicile); Howell v. Howell, 147 Tex. 14, 210 S.W.2d 978, (divorce); Grieger v. Vega, 153 Tex. 498, 271 S.W.2d 85, 34 Tex.L.Bev. 138, (wrongful shooting death); City of Houston v. Lurie, 148 Tex. 391, 224 S.W.2d 871, 14 A.L.R.2d 61, (fire hazard to life and property); Werner v. Brehm, Tex.Civ.App., 216 S.W.2d 991 (duress, ref. n.r.e.; Brown v. Brown, Tex.Civ.App., 256 S.W.2d 143, ref. n.r.e.; (common-law marriage) ; Viduarri v. Bruni, 179 S.W.2d 818, error ref.; Pearson v. Doherty, 143 Tex. 64, 183 S.W.2d 453 (adverse possession); Jones v. Rainey, Tex.Civ.App., 168 S.W.2d 507, error ref. (damages to livestock); See Hodges, Special Issue Submission in Texas, § 40. Even, within the field of personal injury litigation, a broad submission of issues has met with no opposition in many instances. What Judge Stayton called granulation of issues has not occurred with respect to the issues on discovered peril, Ford v. Panhandle & S. F. Ry., 151 Tex. 538, 252 S.W.2d 561; Texas & N. O. R. R. v. Krasoff, 144 Tex. 436, 191 S.W.2d 1; East Texas Theaters, Inc. v. Swink, 142 Tex. 268, 177 S.W.2d 195; Turner v. Texas Co., 138 Tex. 380, 159 S.W.2d 112, attractive nuisance; Eaton v. R. B. George Investments, Inc., 152 Tex. 523, 260 S.W.2d 587, and res ipsa loquitur; Thompson v. Brown, Tex.Civ.App., 222 S.W.2d 442; Rogers v. Coca Cola Bottling Co., Tex.Civ.App., 156 S.W.2d 325. Becently this court repulsed efforts to cut the lookout issue into several possible factual inquiries. Traywick v. Goodrich, Tex.Civ.App., 364 S.W.2d 190.