Court Opinion

ID: 9833706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:57:29.754414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.059633
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The defendant in error, R. B. George Machinery Company, presents a vigorous motion for a rehearing based principally upon the contention that inasmuch as the court’s special issue No. 1, which we held to be unsupported by the evidence, was an issue requested by the plaintiff in error Stark, he is estopped and precluded from contending that the evidence failed to sustain the answer of the jury to the issue. The following cases are in accord with this contention: Poindexter v. Receivers of Kirby Lumber Company, 101 Tex. 322, 107 S. W. 42; Sanford v. Nueces River Valley R. Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 143 S. W. 329; Crowley Mercantile Co. v. Brenard Mfg. Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 287 S. W. 127; Commerce Farm Credit Co. v. Torrance (Tex. Civ. App.) 7 S.W.(2d) 1110; and other cases of like effect.
The charge on its face appears to be that of the court, but by reference to a bill of exception contained in the record (bill No. 7), which escaped our attention "on original consideration, it appears that this together with other issues was in the form requested by the plaintiff in error Stark and interveners, and hence if it is our duty to apply the rule of the decisions cited, we perhaps improperly considered the assignment we sustained.
Article 2190, Rev. Civ. Statutes of 1925, has been amended by act of the 42d Legislature, approved April 25, 1931 (see Gen. Laws 42d Leg. Reg. Session, page 120, c. 78 [Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 2190]). The amended act thus reads:
“Section 1. That Article 2190 of the Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas of 1925 be and the same is hereby amended so as to read hereafter as follows:
“ ‘Article 2190. When the Court submits a case upon special issues, he shall submit all the issues made by the pleading and evidence. Failure to submit an issue shall not be deemed a ground for reversal of the judgment, unless its submission has been requested in writing by the party complaining of the judgment. Upon appeal or Writ of Error, an issue not submitted and not requested is deemed as found by the Court in such manner as to support the judgment if there is evidence to sustain such finding. A claim that the evidence was insufficient to warrant the submission of any issue may be complained of for the first time after verdict, regardless of whether the submission of such issue was requested by the complaining party.’
“See. 2. That all laws and parts of laws in conflict herewith be and the same are hereby repealed.
“Sec. 3. The importance of simplifying Court procedure and the near approach of the end of the Session of the Legislature create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional Rule requiring bills to be read on three several days be suspended, and said Rule is suspended and this Act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.”
The act is remedial in character and contains no saving clause, and, if effective, undoubtedly is to be followed, as it relates to a mere matter of court procedure.in which appellant has no vested right. See Mexican National Railway Co. v. Mussette, 86 Tex. 708, *102926 S. W. 1075, 24 L. R. A. 642. And the fact that the amendment is in opposition to prior decisions of the court is immaterial. See Storrie v. Cortes, 90 Tex. 283, 38 S. W. 154, 35 L. R. A. 666. The amendment manifests the legislative purpose to depart, from the rule of the cases above cited, and we are in accord with that purpose. Inasmuch, 'therefore, as we are in accord with the rule indicated by the legislative enactment, we will not now at this late day follow the decisions so clearly deprived of authority by the legislative enactment. We are the more inclined to thus dispose of the question by reason of the fact that the answers of the jury to issues other than issue No. 1 are at least apparently in conflict with the answer which we have held unsupported by the evidence, thus leaving the judgment to rest upon an uncertain basis suggestive of a possible miscarriage of justice.
Defendant in error’s motion for rehearing is overruled.