Court Opinion

ID: 9676859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:36:22.563852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:46.177820
License: Public Domain

MAUZY, Justice,
dissenting.
The dissenting opinion of September 11, 1991 is withdrawn, and the following is substituted in its place.
Today the court reaches an issue improperly, decides it wrongly, and disposes of the case unfairly. I dissent.
I.
In its eagerness to reach the issue of the State’s duty, the court takes pains to excuse the State’s failure to make a proper objection to the jury charge. Because any complaint regarding a defective instruction is waived unless specifically included in a proper objection, Tex.R.Civ.P. 274, I would hold that the State has waived the error it now asserts.
The trial court submitted a broad-form jury charge along with instructions regarding the State’s duty. The instructions explained the duty associated with a special defect, but did not discuss the duty applicable in the absence of a special defect.1 *242Guided by those instructions, the jury found the State negligent. The trial court rendered judgment on the verdict, reducing the jury’s award in accordance with separate findings on comparative negligence.
The State now argues that the obscured culvert should have been treated as an ordinary premise defect, rather than a special defect, as a matter of law. We do not know how the trial court would have responded to this argument, because there is no indication in the record that the State ever urged this view at trial. In fact, the State’s only objection to the charge took a very different position: the State argued, wrongly, that the characterization of the culvert should be left to the jury.2 The objection did not assert that the property’s condition was an ordinary premise defect; nor did it point out any inadequacy concerning the duty applicable to an ordinary premise defect.
To preserve any contention that the trial court erroneously charged the jury on the State’s duty to Payne, the State was required to object to the trial court’s instructions. Tex.R.Civ.P. 274; see Yellow Cab and Baggage Co. v. Green, 154 Tex. 330, 277 S.W.2d 92, 93 (1955) (holding that when trial court gives erroneous instruction, objection is required to preserve error). A vague or incorrect objection, however, does not suffice to preserve error. An objection to the charge must distinctly point out the objectionable matters and the grounds of the objection. Tex.R.Civ.P. 274; Wilgus v. Bond, 730 S.W.2d 670, 677 (Tex.1987). An objection is insufficient to preserve error if it fails to adequately explain why an instruction is legally incorrect. Castleberry v. Branscum, 721 S.W.2d 270, 277 (Tex.1987). On several occasions, we have held that an objection based upon one ground did not preserve error on another ground. See Aero Energy, Inc. v. Circle C Drilling Co., 699 S.W.2d 821, 822 (Tex.1985); Davis v. Campbell, 572 S.W.2d 660 (Tex.1978).
Although the State objected to the charge, it did so on the basis that the instruction was a comment on the weight of the evidence, not on the ground that it misstated the State’s legal duty to Payne. I would hold that this objection did not adequately state the “specific grounds for the ruling [the State] desired the court to make.” Tex.R.App.P. 52(a); see Davis v. Campbell, 572 S.W.2d at 663 (holding that a “no evidence” objection did not amount to a complaint that a special issue was immaterial). A litigant cannot base an objection at trial on one ground and then complain on appeal that the trial court erred on another ground.
If the State’s current assertion is correct — that is, if, as a matter of law, the defect in this case was not a special defect — then the instructions submitted were fatally flawed. The instructions permitted the jury to impose the duty applicable to special defects, and provided no guidance regarding the State’s duty in the absence of a special defect. The instructions did not give the jury the opportunity to apply the standard which the State now urges.
Disregarding the defects in the charge, the majority holds that the State preserved error regarding the characterization of the defect by requesting a jury question con*243cerning Payne’s knowledge of the culvert. This view is not only inconsistent with our rules; it is also unsound as a matter of practice. Only by proper objection does a litigant afford the trial court sufficient opportunity to correct defects in the charge. See Wilgus v. Bond, 730 S.W.2d 670, 672 (Tex.1987). Thus, when the charge contains a defective instruction, the mere tender of a correct issue does not preserve error. See Tex.R.Civ.P. 274.
*242I have objection to ... the paragraph entitled “duty of special defect.” That defines that the basis of the objection is that it constitutes comment upon the weight of the evidence and amounts to an instruction to the jury that there is, in fact, a special defect, removes that issue from the province of the jury and keeps it from being a fact issue as it should be.
*243What was the trial court to do when the State requested a question regarding Payne’s knowledge of the defect? The majority holds that the trial court reversibly erred by refusing the question; but under settled law, the trial court would have erred by submitting it. As explained by University of Texas Law Professor Patrick Hazel, an amicus on rehearing, the requested question was unacceptable. First, the question represented a “phase or shade” of the broad question; and separately submitting one element of a broad question is inconsistent with the concepts underlying broad-form submission. Second, submitting the question could have led to a conflict in the jury’s answers, since a “yes” answer to both questions would have meant both that the State was negligent and that the State had no duty. Finally, the request was not in substantially correct wording, as required by Rule 278: it placed the burden of proving Payne’s knowledge on the State, while the majority places it on Payne.
Professors J.H. Edgar of the Texas Tech University School of Law and John J. Sampson of the University of Texas School of Law, as amici curiae, agree that the State failed to preserve the error it now asserts. Yet, the majority persists in rewriting established Texas procedure to permit preservation of error by making an incorrect objection and requesting an improper question.
In rejecting the views of legal scholars, the majority continues its abandonment of the principles underlying broad-form submission. See Keetch v. Kroger (Tex.1992) (Mauzy, J., dissenting); Westgate v. State, 35 Tex.S.Ct.J. 1042, 1052-53, 1992 WL 148114 (July 1, 1992) (Doggett, J., dissenting). Broad-form submission reduces conflicting jury answers, thus reducing appeals and avoiding retrials. Texas Dept. of Human Serv. v. E.B., 802 S.W.2d 647 (Tex.1990). The proper remedy for a defective instruction, then, is to correct the instruction. If the instruction stands uncorrected, additional issues will muddle the charge and foster conflicting jury answers, increasing the likelihood of appeal and retrial. Today’s opinion effectively endorses that approach. I would not. In the interest of comprehensible jury submissions, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals without reaching the issue of the State’s duty.
II.
Having improperly reached the issue of the State’s duty, the court then defines that duty incorrectly. The Tort Claims Act provides that when a claim arises from a premise defect, the governmental unit generally owes the claimant the same duty that a private person owes to a licensee on private property. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.022(a). The task before the court, then, is to decide what duty a private person owes to a licensee on private property.
According to the court, a private person owes to a licensee only the duty “not to injure the licensee by willful, wanton or grossly negligent conduct.” 838 S.W.2d at 237 (citing State v. Tennison, 509 S.W.2d 560, 562 (Tex.1974)). The exception, the court states, is that “if the licensor has knowledge of a dangerous condition, and the licensee does not, the licensor has a duty to warn the licensee or to make the condition reasonably safe.” Id.
The duty thus announced contrasts sharply with the duty this court has applied with respect to invitees. As to invitees, an occupier of premises has a duty to use ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition, or to warn of any hazard. J. Weingarten, Inc., v. Razey, 426 S.W.2d 538, 539 (Tex.1968). The invitee’s knowledge has no bearing on the oc*244cupier’s duty; rather, it bears upon the invitee’s own negligence. Parker v. Highland Park, 565 S.W.2d 512, 521 (Tex.1978).
The court’s statement of a special duty for licensors reflects a continued, blind adherence to the age-old system of entrant categorization. In clinging to that system, the court totally disregards the modern trend away from the ancient categories; once again, we simply “succumb to the blandishments of judicial torpidity.” Nixon v. Mr. Property Management, 690 S.W.2d 546, 554 (Kilgarlin, J., concurring). Myriad courts and commentators have recognized that the common-law classifications “establish immunities from liability which no longer comport with accepted values and common experience.” Smith v. Arbaugh’s Restaurant, 152 U.S.App.D.C. 86, 469 F.2d 97, cert. denied, 412 U.S. 939, 93 S.Ct. 2774, 37 L.Ed.2d 399 (1973). Thus, modern courts have turned increasingly toward “imposing on owners and occupiers a single duty of reasonable care in all the circumstances.” Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 630, 79 S.Ct. 406, 409, 3 L.Ed.2d 550 (1959). See Note, Tort Liability of Owners and Possessors of Land — A Single Standard of Reasonable Care Under the Circumstances Towards Invitees and Licensees, 33 Ark.L.Rev. 194, 197 (1979); Recent Development, Torts — Abrogation of Common-Law Entrant Classes of Trespasser, Licensee, and Invitee, 25 Vand.L.Rev. 623, 624 (1972).
The court’s error today, though, goes beyond a simple disregard for developments in other jurisdictions. In making a licensor’s duty dependent on the licensee’s knowledge, the court also ignores significant developments in this jurisdiction. When a licensor has knowledge of a dangerous condition, the court holds, the li-censor has a duty to warn of the condition, or make it safe, if the licensee is unaware of the condition. Thus, to establish a duty to warn or make safe, a licensee has the burden to affirmatively show that he or she had no knowledge of the dangerous condition. This view is a ghost of the old “no-duty” doctrine, under which there was no duty to warn a person of things he or she already knows. See, e.g., Harvey v. Seale, 362 S.W.2d 310, 312 (Tex.1962).
Along with the doctrines of volenti non fit injuria and assumed risk, the no-duty doctrine was long a chronic source of confusion and unfairness in Texas premise liability law. After years of wrestling with this “rather clumsy concept,” Halepeska v. Callihan Interests, Inc., 371 S.W.2d 368, 379 (Tex.1963), we finally abolished it outright in Parker v. Highland Park, Inc., 565 S.W.2d 512, 517 (Tex.1978). We noted in Parker that “[t]he no-duty doctrine has been generally condemned. It is a harsh doctrine and imports a distrust of juries.” Id. at 519. Further, we recognized that “[a] plaintiff’s burden to negate his own knowledge and appreciation ... overlaps and duplicates the voluntary assumption of risk doctrine,” which this court abolished in Farley v. M M Cattle Company, 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975). Parker, 565 S.W.2d at 519. With Farley, the court explained, the no-duty doctrine became obsolete:
A plaintiff’s knowledge, whether it is derived from a warning or from the facts, even if the facts display the danger openly and obviously, is a matter that bears upon his own negligence; it should not affect the defendant’s duty.
Id. at 521. For those reasons, among others, we unanimously repudiated the whole no-duty concept:
We now expressly abolish the so-called no-duty concept in this case and, as expressed in Farley, “henceforth in the trial of all actions based on negligence ...” The reasonableness of an actor’s conduct under the circumstances will be determined under principles of contributory negligence.
565 S.W.2d at 517.
The Parker opinion does state that it “deals with invitees and tenants and does not involve licensees or trespassers.” Id. at 513. The reasoning of the opinion, however, applies every bit as forcefully to licensees as it does to invitees. In either case, requiring the plaintiff to affirmatively negate his or her own knowledge effec*245tively resurrects the doctrine of voluntary assumption of risk. The cleaner, simpler, and fairer way to try premise liability cases is to apply ordinary negligence principles. See Parker, 565 S.W.2d at 519. The submission in this case demonstrates the efficacy of that approach: the trial court allowed the jury to determine Payne’s comparative negligence, taking into account any knowledge Payne might have had concerning the defect.
The court’s disregard of Parker is as mystifying as its disregard of the trend previously discussed. One possible explanation, though, lies in the language of the Tort Claims Act. The Act states that when a claim arises from a premise defect, the government generally owes “the duty that a private person owes to a licensee on private property.” Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.022(a). One might argue that the legislature was contemplating the particular duty that existed in 1969, when the Act was adopted, and that it intended the government to have that same duty forever. See State v. Tennison, 509 S.W.2d at 563 (Reavley, J., concurring).3
That argument, however, is unpersuasive. If the legislature had one specific duty in mind, it could easily have stated that duty expressly. See, e.g., Tex.Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.022(b) (imposing “duty to warn”). But the legislature’s intention was to make the government as responsible, within particular areas of law, as private persons. See, e.g., Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.021(1)(B),(2). Thus, in section 101.022(a), the legislature expressly linked the applicable duty to the common law, knowing full well that the common law was moving toward a broader duty for owners and occupiers of land. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 358 U.S. at 630, 79 S.Ct. at 409.
Rather than obstruct the evolution of the common law, I would welcome it. Like the Kermarec court, I would impose on owners and occupiers of land “a single duty of reasonable care in all the circumstances.” Id. Failing that option, I would dispense with the requirement that the licensee affirmatively negate his or her knowledge of the dangerous condition.
III.
The court’s holding deprives Payne of the recovery to which the jury found he was entitled, and of which both courts below approved. In this situation, our rules require us to remand the cause for a new trial “if it shall appear that the justice of the cause demands another trial.” Tex.R.App.P. 180; see, e.g., L.M.B. Corp. v. Gurecky, 501 S.W.2d 300, 303 (Tex.1973). Regrettably, the court does not do so. Instead of giving Payne the opportunity to make his case under the rules announced today, the court chooses to slam the courthouse door shut.
Why did Payne try the case as he did? Perhaps it was because he took this court’s language seriously. In Parker, we recognized that “[a] large body of Texas law, which has never been overruled, demonstrates that premises cases are more easily tried under ordinary negligence and contributory negligence principles.” 565 S.W.2d at 519. That is exactly the manner in which this cause was tried.
Perhaps, to confirm his sense of how the duty issue should be submitted, Payne turned to the nearest law dictionary. If so, he would have found the following guidance under the heading, “Licensee”:
Formerly, the duty owed to a licensee was that of refraining from wilful, wanton, and reckless conduct. This rule has been changed and now, in most jurisdictions, the occupier of land owes the licensee the duty of reasonable or due care.
Black’s Law Dictionary 830 (5th ed. 1979). That guidance, like Parker, is consistent with the manner in which this cause was tried.
Both Payne and the trial court made the same mistake: they applied modem premise liability jurisprudence. This court, for its part, applies a doctrine that was already. antiquated when the United States Su*246preme Court rejected it in 1959. Kermarec, 358 U.S. at 630, 79 S.Ct. at 409. Worse, the court then punishes Payne’s credulity by rendering judgment against him, rather than remanding the cause in the interest of justice.
This case was properly tried under ordinary principles of negligence. I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. Failing that, I would remand the cause for a new trial.
DOGGETT and GAMMAGE, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

. The relevant portion of the charge read as follows:
"GOVERNMENTAL LIABILITY”: A governmental unit in the state is liable for personal injury and death so caused by a condition or use of tangible personal or real property if the governmental unit would, were it a private person, be liable to the claimant according to Xcxds Isw
“DUTY OWED: SPECIAL DEFECT’: Where there is a special defect such as an excavation or obstruction on or adjacent to a highway, road, or street or where there is the absence or malfunction of a traffic sign, signal or warning device that is required by law, the *242governmental unit owes to the plaintiff a duty to warn of such special defect. The duty owed is a duty to use ordinary care to either warn of a dangerous condition or to make such dangerous condition reasonably safe, provided the governmental unit had knowledge of the dangerous condition, or through the exercise of ordinary care, should have had knowledge of the dangerous condition.
"DANGEROUS CONDITION" means a condition other than normally connected with the use of the roadway, excavation or obstruction, and a person using ordinary care could not encounter such condition with safety.
"NEGLIGENCE" means failure to use ordinary care; that is to say, failure 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.

. Counsel for the State asserted:

. To the extent that this reasoning underlies today’s holding, future courts should beware of applying the court’s opinion beyond the context of section 101.022(a).