Court Opinion

ID: 9680896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:40:42.044271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:30.035606
License: Public Domain

McGEE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The Railroad affirmatively pled that the accident was due solely to the washout of its tracks caused by an Act of God and produced substantial evidence that the unprecedented rainstorm caused the washout and subsequent accident. The Railroad insisted that this was a controlling issue and requested the trial court to submit an issue inquiring whether the accident was due solely to an Act of God. I am in agreement with the holding of the majority opinion that the court of civil appeals erred in holding that the Railroad was entitled to a separate issue on the Act of God defense; clearly such an issue would have been an inferential rebuttal issue proscribed by Rule 277.
I disagree, however, with that portion of the opinion that would require the trial court to submit both a definition of an Act of God and an additional instruction on it. The trial court correctly submitted the following definition and instruction:
“You are instructed that by the term ‘Act of God’ as used in this Charge is meant an accident that is due directly and exclusively to natural causes without human intervention and which no amount of foresight or care reasonably exercised could have prevented. The accident must be one occasioned by the violence of nature, and all human agency is to be excluded from creating or entering into the cause. The term implys [sic] the intervention of some cause not of human origin and not controlled by human power. If the derailment resulted in whole or in part from human negligence it was not an ‘Act of God’.
“An occurrence may be an ‘Act of God’, that is, an event not caused in whole or in part by the negligence of any party.”
The majority opinion, as I understand it, would also require that the following instruction be given in the charge after the definitions of “negligence” and “cause in whole or in part”:
“In connection with the above definitions and any special issue using either term, you are instructed that an occurrence is not caused in whole or in part by the negligence of any party if it is due solely to an ‘Act of God’.”
In my opinion, this additional instruction is an unwarranted comment on the weight of the evidence and, therefore, is improper.
Further, I strongly disagree with the majority’s holding regarding the manner in which Special Issue No. 1 was submitted. The broad form of submission used in this case is a permissible means of submitting controlling issues to the jury, Tex.R.Civ.P. 277; see Mobil Chemical Co. v. Bell, 517 S.W.2d 245 (Tex.1974); Members Mutual *281Insurance Co. v. Muckelroy, 523 S.W.2d 77 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1975, writ ref’d n. r. e.), and I do not think additional instructions are necessary. The majority’s opinion, I fear, will lead to the excessive use of explanatory instructions, thus defeating the intent of Rule 277 to have a simpler special verdict system.
I would reverse the judgment of the court of civil appeals and affirm that of the trial court.