Court Opinion

ID: 9772439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:17:46.848996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:44.391408
License: Public Domain

HILL, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The trial court’s refusal to submit a requested special issue constitutes reversible error if (1) there is evidence supporting submission of the issue, TEX.R.CIV.P. 277, and (2) the party requesting the issue tendered it to the court in substantially correct form, TEX.R. CIV.P. 279. Having searched the record, I find that there is some evidence that Pla-cencio improperly installed the grinding wheel as an integral part of the working unit, that he applied excessive pressure to the side of the grinding wheel, and that he jammed the drill bit between the grinding wheel and the bench grinder’s guard. Thus, there is evidence to support a finding that Placencio’s misuse proximately caused this injury and this evidence supports the submission of Allied’s misuse issues to the jury. Allied’s misuse issues therefore should have been submitted unless they were not tendered in substantially correct form.
Allied’s misuse instruction and special issues numbers 2 and 3 were contained in the Texas Pattern Jury Charges. 3 STATE BAR OF TEXAS, TEXAS PATTERN JURY CHARGES PJC 72.02B (1982). Special issue number 4 was also contained in the Texas Pattern Jury Charges; however, the pattern jury charge is preceded by the following conditioning language:
If you have found that the product in question was defective in some manner that was a producing cause of the occurrence in question and you have also found that [the plaintiff] misused the product in some manner that was a proximate cause of the occurrence in question, and only in that event, then answer [the following question].
Id. Because Allied did not similarly condition its requested special issue number 4, the majority has concluded that the issue was a comment on the weight of the evidence. According to the majority, the words “each cause” suggested that both Allied and Placencio must have contributed to the accident. Thus, the majority reasons that the trial court properly refused to submit the issue to the jury because Allied did not submit the issue in substantially correct form.
I disagree. Allied positioned special issue number 4 after two other requested issues which asked whether the plaintiff misused the product, and if so, whether such misuse was a proximate cause of the occurrence. In addition, special issue number 4 specifically stated that the jury should not assign a percentage of the fault to Placencio unless his misuse of the bench ginder, “if any,” contributed to the accident. Because Allied’s special issue number 4 was positioned after those two other issues and because it contained the “if any” language, I believe that any impermissible comment on the weight of the evidence was eliminated, and that Allied’s tendered misuse issues were in substantially correct form. “Substantially correct form” does not mean perfect. Fawcett v. Bellah, 556 S.W.2d 598, 602 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1977, no writ); Call of Houston, Inc. v. Mulvey, 343 S.W.2d 522 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston 1961, no writ); *24Modica v. Howard, 161 S.W.2d 1093 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1942, no writ).
The majority does not, of course, deny that this Court would have upheld the submission of Allied’s special issues if the trial court had actually submitted them. To the contrary, this Court would have upheld the submission of those issues on the ground that any implied comment on the weight of the evidence was harmless error. See Alvarez v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co., 683 S.W.2d 375 (Tex.1984). Yet, despite this fact, the majority has taken the anomalous position that Allied’s requested issues are affirmatively incorrect.
As its reliance on nearly forty-year-old precedent demonstrates, the majority opinion signals a retreat back to the hypertech-nical special issues practices previously disavowed by this Court. “[I]n an already complicated field like that of special issues, we cannot strain too hard for perfection without ultimate damage to the whole jury system in civil cases.” Id. at 378; Mason v. Yellow Cab & Baggage Co., 153 Tex. 344, 349, 269 S.W.2d 329, 331 (1954). Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the cause for new trial.
CAMPBELL and GONZALEZ, JJ., join in this dissent.