Court Opinion

ID: 9834178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:21:58.003698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.467434
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Our opinion was filed in this case on October 23d. On -the 5th of this month appellant secured from the trial court a nunc pro tunc order overruling the demurrers referred to in the original opinion. On the same day appellant filed in this court its motion for certiorari, praying that the clerk of the trial court be directed to send up a transcript of this order and that it be considered as a part of the record on its motion for rehearing. On authority of Woolley- v. Nelson (Tex. Civ. App.) 250 S. W. 481; Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Parker, 104 Tex. 162, 135 S. W. 369; Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. of Texas v. Hurdle (Tex. Civ. App.) 142 S. W. 992; Trammell v. Rosen (Tex. Civ. App.) 153 S. W. 164, 165; *214City Nat. Bank v. Watson (Tex. Civ. App.) 178 S. W. 657, the motion for certiorari is denied. Relief of the character prayed for cannot be granted after submission in this court.
We were in error in overruling appellant’s thirteenth proposition. In the charge, the term “medical services” was used in the sense of doctor’s bills. The cost of “medicine” was submitted as a separate item. These issues were submitted as pleaded by appellee. Appellant’s exception was “because there is no evidence in the record as to what the medical expenses or doctor’s bill is.” By this exception we thought appellant used the terms “medical expenses” and “doctor’s bill” as synonymous, and overruled the exception as being insufficient to call the court’s attention to the fact that no evidence had been offered in support of the claim for medicine. Appellant strenuously insists that the exception was intended to challenge the charge on both items. As the exception 'is subject to that construction, we grant the motion in so far as it relates to the cost of medicine, and, as appellee has offered to remit the $50' sued for for the cost of medicine, it is ordered that the judgment of the lower court be reduced by this sum. This order has support in International & G. N. R. Co. v. Sampson (Tex. Civ. App.) 64 S. W. 692, 694, where Judge Gill, speaking for the court, said: “We think it equally clear that this court can, in view of the evidence as it stands, safely proceed upon the theory that the jury allowed no more for medical bills than the amount claimed in ■ the petition. That sum, viz. $200, the appellee has offered to remit, and the remainder of the judgment, viz. $1,050, being supported by the evidence as to other injuries, will, as thus reduced, be affirmed. The course we have adopted finds distinct support in .[Missouri, K. & T.] Railway Co. v. Warren [90 Tex. 566, 40 S. W. 6],” cited above.
This very proposition was before this court in H. E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Jones, 1 S.W.(2d) 743, 748, a personal injury ease in which appellee sued for dalnages to his person and for hospital and' nursing fees and doctor’s bills and costs of medicine. These special items of hospital and nursing fees, doctor’s bills, and'cost of medicine were itemized by appellee in his petition, totaling $1,109. The issue of damages was submitted in one question and a gross amount found by the jury in the sum of $15,000. In affirming the case in part, and in reversing and remanding it in part, we said:
“But there was no evidence that the cost of these items was reasonable. [Referring to the items sued for as hospital and nursing fees, doctor’s bills and cost of medicine.] The evidence went no further than to show that appellee paid out these specific amounts. For that reason,' the court should have eliminated all these special items from its charge-to the jury. The plaintiff could recover items such as doctor bills, medicine bills, hospital fees, etc., only upon a showing that the charges were reasonable. City of Beaumont v. Dougherty (Tex. Civ. App.) 298 S. W. 631. However, this error does not reverse the case, since the amount involved is easily ascertained, both from the pleadings and the evidence. The jury having assessed appellee’s damages at $15,000, and he having pleaded his special damages in the sum of $1,019, it follows that the judgment should be affirmed for $13,981, being the difference between $15,-000 and $1,019. As to the $1,019, being the items above referred to, the cause is reversed and remanded.
“Affirmed in part, and in part reversed and remanded, with costs taxed against appellee.”
It follows that appellant is in error in insisting that this error in the court’s charge should reverse the judgment of the lower court. In Support of this proposition, it cites American Produce Co. v. Gonzales (Tex. Com. App.) 1 S.W.(2d) 602, which, as we construe it, is not at all in point. However, after the judgment in that case was entered by the Supreme Court, it refused writ of error in the Jones Case, thus affirming the proposition upon which we based our judgment reversing the judgment of the lower court only in part.
The eighth proposition was correctly overruled. Appellant now says that this proposition and the assignment upon which it was based do not constitute exceptions to question No. 1 'copied in our opinion, nor to any of the other questions thus submitted. The issues of this case were submitted by twenty-seven questions. The eighth proposition was as follows: “When the court in submitting controlling issues fails to instruct the jury as to the burden of proof on said issues, by requiring the jury to make as bases for its findings ‘a preponderance of the evidence,’' said charge leaves the jury to grope in the darkness as to how a conclusion can be-reached, and said charge is, therefore, fatally defective, and constitutes reversible error.”
The assignment is no broader than the proposition. Appellant briefed this proposition originally and on rehearing only in so far as it relates to five of these questions. The-assignment did not call the trial court’s attention to these specific questions. Apparently the concession is made that all the other-questions were properly submitted. In order to constitute error, it was necessary -that appellant call the trial court’s attention by exception to the particular questions deemed by it defective.
Complaint is made, of the following fact conclusions:
(a) That McCauley “admitted he left his ■ master’s place of business for the purpose of driving the truck home. * * * There was- - *215never a moment from the time the driver left the Ineeda Laundry on Main Street when he was not driving the truck home for the purpose of storing it for the night.” The testimony of this witness, copied in our opinion, fully sustains this conclusion, especially where he said: “I was incidentally going by to get my wife. I was practically on my way home.”
(b) We correct our conclusion that “Mc-Cauley’s home was a block or so west of the crossing of Pearl and Broadway” to read “west of the crossing of Pearl and Calder.” The Pearl and Calder crossing is one block west of the Pearl and Broadway crossing.
(c) We found that McCauley’s most direct route home was by driving from Main street into Broadway and from Broadway west on Pearl and Calder. Appellant insists that the evidence shows that the most direct route was north on Main and west on Calder. This finding is made as requested by appellant. The difference between the two routes, .however, is so insignificant as to be utterly immaterial, amounting to only a few feet.
(d) Appellant is in error in insisting that McCauley was driving west on Liberty when he struck appellee. To be accurate, instead of saying “going south on Liberty,” we should have said going southwest on Liberty..
Except as herein indicated, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.