Court Opinion

ID: 9769531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:53:33.696854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:56.528853
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Contrary to the view of our opinion expressed by appellees in their motion for rehearing, we did not hold that the submission of imminent peril by instruction instead of by special issue was error. Our holding was, and is, that, because the doctrine of imminent peril is available only to one in the legal position of a plaintiff, the doctrine could not be invoked by defendant McAfee to excuse his conduct and, thus, it was error by the court to instruct that if the jury found that McAfee was in a position of imminent peril, then all answers to the negligence issues concerning his conduct should be in the negative.
The opinion is not to be taken as expressing how the doctrine of imminent peril should be submitted in a proper case. Our statement that in 1962 Professor Thode evinced that imminent peril is an ultimate issue concerning the conduct of a plaintiff who, upon proof of all the elements, is entitled to submission of special issues, was made within the framework of tracing the historical development of the doctrine. In this connection, perhaps we also should have noted, as we now note, that the revision of Rule 277, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, effective 1 September 1973, affords the trial court wide discretion in submitting such special issues and instructions that shall be proper to enable the jury to render a verdict in a given case.
*713Raised for the first time in their motion for rehearing is appellees’ contention that Sanders and Forshage procedurally waived in the trial court their fourteenth point of error which we sustained, and that, therefore, we should not have entertained it. The procedural facts upon which the point was based were clearly set forth in appellants’ brief and, unless challenged by appel-lees, were authorized to be accepted as correct. Rule 419, T.R.C.P. Appellees did not challenge the vitality of the point on submission; rather, they joined issue on the merit of the point, which was fully briefed and orally argued on submission, without suggesting in any manner that it should not be considered. The point was presented as a viable one to be sustained or overruled.
It is only after we have found the point worthy that appellees first contend that we should not have entertained it. Under these circumstances, it is held that appellate adjudication of an appellant’s point of error is justified and that an appel-lee’s objection to its consideration comes too late for attention when made for the first time in appellee’s motion for rehearing. Southern Gas & Gasoline Engine Co. v. Adams & Peters, 169 S.W. 1143, 1149-50 (Tex.Civ.App., San Antonio 1914, writ ref’d); Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n. v. Downing, 218 S.W. 112, 122 (Tex.Civ.App., Amarillo 1920, writ ref’d); Harris v. Cleveland, 294 S.W.2d 235, 242-43 (Tex.Civ.App., 1956, writ dism’d); W. T. Burton Company v. Keown Contracting Company, 353 S.W.2d 909, 914 (Tex.Civ.App., Beaumont 1961, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Thomas v. Morrison, 537 S.W.2d 274, 279-81 (Tex.Civ.App., El Paso 1976, writ ref’d n.r.e.).
Appellees’ motion for rehearing is overruled.