Court Opinion

ID: 9777002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:51:08.65349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:46.082505
License: Public Domain

ENOCH, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the Court’s opinion. I write separately with regard to Part V(C). The City of Houston asserts as error the trial court’s failure to submit the City’s requested instruction on “sudden emergency.” I question whether, even if an abuse of discretion, the refusal to submit a “sudden emergency” instruction to the jury in a suit based upon negligence would be anything other than harmless error. We are not compelled to reach that consideration in this case, but the Court’s opinion in Part V(C) implies that such a failure under other facts might not be harmless.
In my view the failure to submit a “sudden emergency” instruction in a negligence case can only be harmless error. As in this case, the jury in a negligence case is instructed that:
“Negligence” means failure to use ordinary care, that is failing to do that which a person of ordinary prudence would have done under the same or similar circumstances or doing that which a person of ordinary prudence would not have done under the same or similar circumstances. “Ordinary care” means that degree of care that would be used by a person of ordinary prudence under the same or similar circumstances.
1 State BaR of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges PJC 2.01 (1991) (emphasis added.) These definitions expressly instruct the jury to evaluate the party’s conduct in the context *362of the surrounding circumstances. It cannot be argued that an “emergency” is not a “similar circumstance” under which a party’s conduct should be measured. To fail to add a duplicative instruction, which merely reminds the jury that-a person who acts with the prudence of an ordinary person under the circumstance of a “sudden emergency” is not negligent, can never be “such a denial of the rights of a defendant in a negligence suit as was reasonably calculated to cause and probably did cause the rendition of an improper judgment.” Tex.R.App.P. 184(b).1 Because it is duplicative and can never amount to reversible error, the “sudden emergency” instruction is surplusage and should be discarded.2
Justice Hecht overstates his concern that abolition of the “sudden emergency” instruction would overrule past precedent. In particular, he cites to Davila v. Sanders, 557 S.W.2d 770 (Tex.1977) (per curiam). Yet in Davila, the “sudden emergency” instruction was not at issue. There, the Court simply rejected the use of an “imminent peril” instruction in negligence cases. Davila is not in jeopardy.
I join in the Court’s opinion and disposition of this case, and I concur only to express the opinion that the practice of submitting a separate instruction on “sudden emergency” should be discontinued.

. In Hill v. Winn Dixie Texas, Inc., 849 S.W.2d 802, 803 (Tex.1992), this Court concluded that the trial court abused its discretion in submitting the "unavoidable accident” instruction. The “unavoidable accident” instruction is similar to the "sudden emergency” instruction — regardless of the existence of an accident, liability does not . attach without negligent conduct. As a matter of logic, the Court in Hill was compelled to conclude that the error was harmless. In that case, I joined the dissent because "[i]t should not be error to tell the jury what the law recognizes— that some accidents occur without anyone's negligence.” Hill, 849 S.W.2d at 805 (J. Hecht, dissenting). Whether given or refused, the "sudden emergency” instruction, like the "unavoidable accident” instruction cannot constitute reversible error.

. Other states have rejected the "sudden emergency” instruction as unnecessary. See McClymont v. Morgan, 238 Neb. 390, 470 N.W.2d 768, 771-72 (1991); Simonson v. White, 220 Mont. 14, 713 P.2d 983, 989 (1986); Knapp v. Stanford, 392 So.2d 196, 198-99 (Miss.1980); Finley v. Wiley, 103 N.J.Super. 95, 246 A.2d 715, 719 (1968). See generally Jeffrey F. Ghent, Annotation, Modem Status of Sudden Emergency Doctrine, 10 A.L.R. 5th 680, 687-695 (1993).