Court Opinion

ID: 9771218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:37:10.8132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:38:14.086329
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

OSBORN, Chief Justice.
The Appellees have filed a Motion for Rehearing with eight points of error which at*505tack each of the holdings of the Court in its original opinion 863 S.W.2d at 494. That Motion raises a procedural issue that the Court must address. The issue was not raised in their Reply Brief filed prior to the Court’s opinion in this case, but now for the first time in the Motion for Rehearing, it is argued that the “no evidence” points have not been properly preserved. The Motion does not urge, although it should, that the judgment of the trial court cannot be rendered if the issue has not been properly raised.

Procedural Error

The courts of this state have long recognized four procedures for raising a “no evidence” issue which, if sustained on appeal, can serve as the basis for a reversal and rendition of an adverse trial court judgment. Those procedural steps are (1) a motion for instructed verdict, (2) an objection to the submission of a vital fact issue, (3) a Rule 301 motion to disregard the jury’s answer to a question, or (4) a Rule 301 motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. R. Calvert, “No Evidence” and “Insufficient Evidence” Points of Error, 38 TEX.L.REV. 361 (I960); M. Osborn, Avoiding the pitfalls of appellate practice, 10 Texas TRIAL Lawyers FoRUM 60 (1975); Hardy v. C.P.I. Sales, Inc., 511 S.W.2d 89 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1974, no writ).
At the time of the decision in Wagner v. Foster, 161 Tex. 333, 341 S.W.2d 887 (1960), a complaint about the overruling of the first two complaints could only be preserved if noted in a motion for new trial. That is no longer required under Rule 324, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.
In this case, the Appellees made a motion for an instructed verdict at the close of the plaintiffs’ case. The motion was overruled and the defendant-appellant presented evidence and did not renew the motion at the close of all the evidence. This results in a waiver of the motion for instructed verdict. Horizon Properties Corp. v. Martinez, 513 S.W.2d 264 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1974, writ ref'd n.r.e.). That motion being the only basis for a rendition point of error, judgment should not be rendered for the Appellant on appeal.
We do note that a “no evidence” point can be raised without any procedural steps prior to the appeal, but if sustained, the case can only be remanded. In Aero Energy, Inc. v. Circle C Drilling Co.,1 699 S.W.2d 821 (Tex.1985), Justice Kilgarlin said that a no evidence point must be preserved through one of the above four steps or by filing a motion for new trial. That holding was repeated in Steves Sash & Door Co., Inc. v. Ceco Corp., 751 S.W.2d 473 (Tex.1988). That is clearly not required today under the language in Rule 324. See First American Title Co. of El Paso v. Prata, 783 S.W.2d 697, 702 n. 1 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1989, writ denied). Today Rule 324 requires a motion for new trial to raise a factual insufficiency point of error. To include a similar requirement for a legal insufficiency point of error would require an amendment to the rule. We conclude that Aero Energy, Inc. and Steves Sash & Door Co. are no longer authority for the propositions stated in those opinions.

Waiver of Error

This procedural issue is complicated by the fact that the Appellees never in the Appellees’ Brief pointed out this procedural defect in the issues raised by the Appellant. This Court faced a similar situation in Thomas v. Morrison, 537 S.W.2d 274 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1976, writ ref'd n.r.e.) where on motion for rehearing, we concluded that an Appellee who filed a brief and raised no question about the assignment of error to support a point of error waived the complaint because of failure to timely raise the issue. We concluded that one who seeks to do battle on the merits of any issue and loses, may not for the first time in a motion for rehear*506ing claim there should have been no battle in the first place. The Texas Supreme Court reached that same result nine years later in Morrison v. Chan, 699 S.W.2d 205 (Tex.1985) where Justice Gonzalez wrote, “The court of appeals did not err in refusing to reverse the case on a point raised for the first time in Morrison’s motion for rehearing.” Id. at 206-207. Other courts have reached the same result. Sherrod v. Moore, 819 S.W.2d 201, 205 (Tex.App.—Amarillo 1991, no writ) (on motion for rehearing); Langston v. Eagle Publishing Co., 719 S.W.2d 612, 625 (Tex.App.—Waco 1986, writ ref'd n.r.e.) (on motion for rehearing); Washington v. Walker County, 708 S.W.2d 493, 497 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1986, writ ref'd n.r.e.) (on motion for rehearing).
We conclude that the Appellant did not properly preserve the “no evidence” issues so as to obtain a rendition, as opposed to a remand, but the Appellees waived their right to complain and the Court will not, after spending days and weeks on these issues, now again review them based upon a complaint raised for the first time in a motion for rehearing.

Review of Negligent Entrustment on Great Weight Test

We next consider the argument that this Court has erred in assessing the great weight and preponderance point concerning the issue of negligent entrustment. It is argued that where the evidence is conflicting, the jury’s verdict is generally regarded as conclusive. In passing on such an issue, a court of appeals is required to weigh all of the evidence and to remand the cause for a new trial if it concludes that the verdict was so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. Traylor v. Goulding, 497 S.W.2d 944 (Tex.1973); Montes v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Ass’n, 779 S.W.2d 485 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1989, writ denied).
This is not a case where the Appel-lees, as plaintiffs in the trial court, put on evidence all of which supported the jury finding, and the Appellant, as defendant in the trial court, put on evidence to the contrary. Instead, this is a case where the evidence came from Appellees’ own witnesses who testified that the vehicle had not been loaned out to some person to drive. One of Appel-lees’ witnesses, Argelia Jaurequi, testified that she had hooked battery cables up to the van shortly before it was taken. Another of the Appellees’ witnesses, Jeff Fargason, said he saw the van on the lot on July 24. William Boggs, Jr. said he saw the van that morning. Steve Brown said the battery was dead that afternoon. Silverio Zubia, Jr. said he saw the van an hour before it was reported stolen on the evening of the 24th. All of this testimony came from witnesses called by the Appellees. None of their testimony was impeached and there was no attack on their credibility. Having chosen to vouch for the credibility of at least five witnesses who saw the van on the lot on the 24th shortly before it was reported stolen, the Appellees are not in a position to argue that the finding that the vehicle was entrusted by the owner is not against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. It was their own evidence which makes the finding against the great weight. Although the Appellees may have been in a position to call all of these witnesses who had worked at one time for Story Dodge as adverse witnesses, they chose not to do so and put each of these witness on the stand, as all of their other witnesses, and to vouch for their testimony before the jury. This made them their witnesses. Industrial Fabricating Co. v. Christopher, 220 S.W.2d 281 (Tex.Civ.App.—Galveston 1949, writ ref'd n.r.e.).
We have considered all the points of error in the Motion for Rehearing and they are all overruled.

. It should be noted that the Court's opinion cites as authority City of Austin v. Daniels, 160 Tex. 628, 335 S.W.2d 753 (1960) which was decided under the same rule applied in Wagner v. Foster, 161 Tex. 333, 341 S.W.2d 887 (1960). Rule 324 was amended effective January 1, 1978 to eliminate the requirement for a motion for new trial in jury cases, with exceptions where new evidence is required, the complaint is as to factual insufficiency of the evidence to support a jury finding, a complaint as to damages or jury argument which has not been ruled upon.