Court Opinion

ID: 9832896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:16:59.995742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:55.065810
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We deem it necessary to discuss briefly some argument advanced by the plaintiff in his motion for rehearing herein in connection with our holding that defendant’s defensive theory as outlined in our original opinion should have been submitted to the jury. The plaintiff contends that such theory. was adequately submitted in special issue No. 17' of' the court’s main charge, which was as follows: “Was the injury to the health of Mrs. Lizzie Chandler, if any, caused and occasioned by any *843other cause than the manner in which the defendant operated its disposal plant?”
If the jury had answered issue No. 17 in the negative there would have been more merit to plaintiff’s contention. But the jury answered the issue in the affirmative. Such a response does not exclude the defendant’s theory that malarial fever was the cause of Mrs. Chandler’s ill health. On the contrary, it establishes definitely that some agency other than the alleged misconduct of the defendant was a factor in bringing about the injury to the health of Mrs. Chandler.
In defense of the court’s failure to submit the theory of malarial fever as being1 the source of Mrs. Chandler’s injuries, the plaintiff contends that if such theory had been submitted and the jury had answered the issue favorably to the defendant, it would have done no more than establish another proximate cause of the injury alleged, which would not have affected the results of the verdict in this case as there might have been more than one proximate cause of an injury. In our opinion, in view of the language of the special issue requested by the defendant, such a finding would have established more than a proximate cause. It would have established a sole cause of the injury, which would have been in direct conflict with the other findings favorable to the plaintiff, and, as we held in our original opinion, it would have produced an irreconcilable conflict in the findings of the jury upon which the court could not have rendered a valid judgment!
The motion for rehearing is overruled.