Court Opinion

ID: 9680400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:31:31.148956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:28.438464
License: Public Domain

KILGARLIN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I would affirm the court of appeals’ holding that Montgomery Ward’s objection to special issue number one was preserved. However, I believe that special issue number one, as submitted, was correct and the court of appeals should not have reversed on this ground. Unfortunately, Ms. Hernandez failed to assign this part of the court of appeals’ decision as error. Had she *926preserved error on this point, I would concur with the result reached by the majority.
The history of Rule 272 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, evidences periodic liberalizing changes. Prior to 1941 the rule provided that objections to the charge must be in writing. If the judge overruled the objections, he would endorse his ruling thereon and officially sign them. In 1941, the rule was amended to allow objections to be dictated to the court reporter in the presence of and with the consent of the court and opposing counsel; that such objections be subsequently transcribed; and, the court’s ruling and official signature be endorsed thereon and filed with the clerk. The rule was rewritten, effective January 1, 1976. While the 1976 version still provides that the judge shall announce his rulings upon all objections made to the charge, oral objections may now be made without consent of court. Moreover, the concluding sentence of the new rule states “[i]t shall be presumed, unless otherwise noted in the record, that the party making such objections presented the same at the proper time and excepted to the ruling thereon.”
In the case at bar, during the preparation of the court’s charge, the following colloquy occurred between the court and H.H. Rankin, attorney for Montgomery Ward & Co:
THE COURT: Okay, now, you’re first— let me see if I have got a number on it. All right.
MR. RANKIN: All right, now, Your Honor, for the record, I want to object to the submission of Special Issue— where is it? Where is this Charge to the Special Issue Number—
THE COURT: Number One?
MR. RANKIN: Yes.
THE COURT: False Imprisonment Issue.
MR. RANKIN: I want to object to the Special Issue Number One because Special Issue Number One is a comment on the weight of the evidence.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. RANKIN: In that it states that what would reasonably compensate the Plaintiff for damages resulting from false imprisonment, thereby already assuming and advising the jury that false imprisonment had already occurred in the eyes, of the mind of the Court. Therefore, we object to that and submit that that should be submitted in two Special Issues: One, do you find that there was false imprisonment, and then a Damage Issue.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. RANKIN: In that respect, the Defendant submits their request for Special Issue Number One.
Montgomery Ward then submitted its requested special issue number one, an inquiry as to whether Olivia Hernandez was falsely imprisoned as that term was defined in the charge. The court endorsed and signed its denial of the requested issue.
The majority relies upon three cases for the proposition that error, if any, in the objection to submission of special issue number one was not preserved because no ruling was obtained on the objection.Those cases are Lone Star Steel Co. v. Wahl, 636 S.W.2d 217 (Tex.App. — Texarkana 1982, no writ); Texas Employers Insurance Assoc. v. Clapper, 605 S.W.2d 938 (Tex.Civ.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1980, no writ); and Reliance Insurance Co. v. Dahlstrom Corp., 568 S.W.2d 733 (Tex.Civ.App. — -Eastland 1978, writ ref’d n.r.e.). Additionally, Ms. Hernandez in her brief cites the case of Hyder-Ingram Chevrolet, Inc. v. Kutach, 612 S.W.2d 687 (Tex.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] 1981, no writ). While it is true that all four cases were decided after the 1976 amendment to Rule 272, a study of each case will indicate that none considered the 1976 amendment. Instead, all relied upon pre-1976 cases as authority.1 Current *927court interpretations of Rule 272 requirements based upon pre-1976 holdings are as if Rule 272 was never amended.
Aside from the court of appeals in this case, only one court has attempted to interpret Rule 272 as it currently exists. In Harbour v. Cogburn, 646 S.W.2d 330 (Tex.App. — Eastland 1982, writ requested), the record failed to disclose the ruling by the trial court on Harbour’s objection to the court’s failure to submit an issue regarding the existence of a partnership. Cogburn contended that error, if any, was not preserved because of Harbour’s failure to obtain a ruling on the objection.
In holding that Harbour had preserved his right to complain of the omission of the partnership issues, the court identified the critical new language of the 1976 amendment to Rule 272: “It shall be presumed unless otherwise noted in the record, that the party making such objections presented the same at the proper time and excepted to the ruling thereon.” The court stated: “This [amendment] clearly creates a presumption of timeliness of objections and exceptions to the court’s ruling, but it is unclear whether the existence of a ruling may be presumed as well.” 646 S.W.2d 332. The Harbour court, however, failed to resolve the question of whether Rule 272 presumed the existence of a ruling in all cases.2 Instead, the court’s opinion focused narrowly on the facts of the case. Examining the record, the court determined first that Harbour’s objection was properly made and second, that it had been acknowledged by the trial judge. Third, the court noted that the charge eventually submitted to the jury had not been corrected. Finally, relying on these three facts, the court, in effect, presumed that the objection had been overruled.
Like the situation in Harbour, it is clear from the record in the ease at bar that Montgomery Ward made a proper objection and that the trial court was knowledgeable of the objection. The judge interposed the words “all right” and “yes” after the objection was made. Because the trial court’s charge contained the issue as objected, it certainly may be presumed that the objection was overruled even though the magic words were not pronounced.
The modern trend of amendments to the Rules of Civil Procedure is to eliminate traps for the unwary. I believe that the holding in Harbour is consistent with this trend. Therefore, using the Harbour test, I would hold that Montgomery Ward’s objection to Special Issue Number One was preserved for appellate review.
Like Rule 272, Rule 277 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure has been modernized. With the 1973 amendment to that rule, the following language was added:
It shall be discretionary with the court whether to submit separate questions with respect to each element of a case or to submit issues broadly. It shall not be objectionable that a question is general or includes a combination of elements or issues. ...
In submitting the case, the court shall submit such explanatory instructions and definitions as shall be proper to enable the jury to render a verdict and in such instances the charge shall not be subject to the objection that it is a general charge.
Special issue number one, as submitted, does not comment on the weight of the evidence because it does not assume the existence of false imprisonment. The issue simply asks the jury how much money, if *928any, should be awarded for damages resulting from false imprisonment, if any. The instructions tell the jury what constitutes false imprisonment. Therefore, the jurors in this case were free to award a sum of money as damages if they felt Montgomery Ward was guilty of false imprisonment.
If negligent conduct and proximate cause may be combined into one issue as has been approved in Members Mutual Insurance Co. v. Muckelroy, 523 S.W.2d 77 (Tex.Civ.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1975, writ ref’d n.r.e.), then why should not conduct and damages likewise properly be joined in the same issue? Under the facts and the submission in the instant case, a lawyer would not have to be overly ingenious to argue to the jury that if they did not believe false imprisonment had occurred they should not award any damages. Any advocate could refer to the charge and advise the jury that because of the qualifying words “if any,” the judge was not telling them that false imprisonment existed. Any advocate should be fully able to trace the entire facts of the case as to whether false imprisonment occurred and suggest in the absence of any false imprisonment the answer to issue number one logically should be “none.”
As discussed by Chief Justice Pope and William G. Lowerre in their article, The State of the Special Verdict — 1979, 11 St. Mary’s L.J. Volume 1 (1979), broad issues with proper definitions have long been permitted in non-tort cases, such as eminent domain, common-law marriage, child custody, condemnation, wrongful collection efforts, divorce, violation of city ordinances, adverse possession, and breach of contract. Undoubtedly there are many curmudgeons of the law who mourn the passing of former Rules 272 and 277, just as they did when the 1941 Rules sounded the death knell for general demurrers and taking exceptions to the court’s rulings. It is little wonder that former Chief Judge John R. Brown, writing in Page v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, 349 F.2d 820 (5th Cir.1965) observed of Texas practice: “All of these collateral devices so dear to the heart of Texas bred and Texas trained lawyers immersed in its complex system of special issue submission are in reality merely a submission in another form of questions already implicit in the basic ones.. .. ” Judge Brown concluded as to our special issue practice as it was prior to 1973 that it “leads only to confusion and a proliferation of metaphysical terms scarcely understandable to the most astute scholar.” Id. at 826-27.
I would hold that special issue number one was properly submitted because it did not assume as true the controverted issue of false imprisonment and because the jury was left free to answer “none” if they did not believe that false imprisonment had occurred. However, because Olivia Hernandez has not assigned the court of appeals’ ruling on this as a point of error, I am unable to concur with the majority result.
POPE, C.J., and SPEARS, J., join in this dissent.

. For example, Lone Star Steel Co. v. Wahl, supra, cited only Reliance Insurance Co. v. Dahlstrom Corp., supra, and Howard v. Bolin Warehouses, Inc., 422 S.W.2d 489 (Tex.Civ.App. — Texarkana 1967, no writ). Reliance Insurance Co. v. Dahlstrom Corp., supra, relied only upon Big Three Welding Equipment Co. v. Roberts, 399 S.W.2d 912 (Tex.Civ.App. — Corpus Christi 1966, writ ref'd n.r.e.). Texas Employers Insurance Assoc. v. Clapper, supra, relied only upon Carr v. Gregory, 472 S.W.2d 819 (Tex.Civ.App. — Corpus Christi 1971, no writ). *927Finally, Hyder-Ingram Chevrolet, Inc. v. Kutach, supra, relied only upon Permian Corp. v. Trumbull Asphalt Co. of Del., 472 S.W.2d 555 (Tex.Civ.App. — Corpus Christi 1971, no writ).

. Although the court of appeals in Harbour did not reach the question of the effect of the 1976 amendment to Rule 272, at least one commentator has suggested that present Rule 272 eliminates the necessity of securing an express ruling on objections. See 3 R. McDonald, Texas Civil Practice in District and County Courts, § 12.28 (Supp.1983). In pertinent part, McDonald states: “Since it is presumed that the objections were presented at the proper time and ruling obtained at that time, the many problems experienced in protecting the record for appellate review under the old rule should be greatly diminished.” Id. at 56.