Court Opinion

ID: 9660381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:12:10.54131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:18.941320
License: Public Domain

HIGHTOWER, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the result of the conclusions reached by the majority.
Appellant’s motion to suppress was a blanket motion. In a general fashion it commingled matters admissible in a case of this nature, such as prior injuries, with objectionable matters such as prior claims and settlements, and requested the court to exclude them en bloc’. I am of the opinion that the same rule governs in this situation as that applied where a general objection is made to evidence, part of which is admissible and part of which is not. In such instance the objection is properly overruled. 41-B Tex.Jur. (Rev.), p. 172, sec. 146. Moreover, I do not believe that the appellant was justified in the circumstances in assuming that the court, after overruling such motion, would of a certainty permit the introduction of those matters which might be improper. As in the ruling on special exceptions, a trial judge may and often does change his ruling in the progress of the trial. Notwithstanding these elementary rules, the appellant in the earlier stages of the trial was the first to inject evidence of prior claims and settlements, to which he was a party. He did this deliberately on direct examination, over appellee’s objections, by stating that he had settled a prior suit for injuries to his back for $750, thus waiving objection to, and inviting proof of other *836claims and settlements he had made. City of Gladewater v. Dillard, Tex.Civ.App., 312 S.W.2d 530, and authorities cited. The facts in the Brinkley case, cited in the majority opinion, are so unrelated to those in the present case as to merit no discussion.
I feel that if, indeed, there were other errors committed by the trial court they were not such as were calculated to cause the rendition of an improper judgment. Being of the further opinion that there exists no irreconcilable conflict in the jury’s answers to the issues submitted, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.