Court Opinion

ID: 9767120
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:10:33.366602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:28.739428
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
We were mistaken in our original opinion in our discussion of appellants’ second point when we said that appellants did not file a motion to disregard the jury’s findings in answers to Special Issues Nos. 8 and 8A. In their motion for judgment and in their motion for new trial *634appellants alleged that there was no evidence or that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s answers to the two issues.
However, we cannot sustain appellants’ second point since only a partial statement of facts was brought up on appeal. Only a small portion of the testimony was reproduced. From this fragment we are unable to determine that there was no evidence or that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the jury’s answers.
With reference to their third point appellants contend that they did object, just as we suggested they should have, to the court’s requirement that they stipulate affirmative answers to certain cross-interrogatories which Dr. Weary had refused to answer. The trial court’s Qualified Bill of Exceptions No. 1 states:
“That the court further ruled during the trial that none of Dr. Weary’s deposition testimony taken by and in behalf of Plaintiffs could be presented to the jury by the Plaintiffs in the trial of Plaintiffs’ case unless the witness, Weary, answered certain unanswered cross-interrogatories, namely, Nos. 50, 51, 52, 53, 56 and 57 or that Plaintiffs would stipulate affirmative answers to certain unanswered cross-interrogatories propounded to Dr. Weary by Defendant, all of which rulings and stipulations made by the court and the Plaintiffs were taken down by the court reporter and would be available to the Plaintiffs if a Statement of Facts was ordered by the Plaintiffs but this he has failed to do. Plaintiffs’ counsel elected to stipulate answers to certain cross-interrogatories which were unanswered in order that he could admit into evidence answers to direct interrogatories propounded to and answered by the witness, Dr. Weary.
“That Plaintiffs objected to such rulings by the court and were granted leave ‘to have their full bill’, including the following grounds for objections, but nevertheless the Plaintiffs elected to stipulate answers to the very questions he was objecting to, * *
The record is not clear. The phrase “during the trial” is broad enough to encompass all of’ the proceedings which form part of a trial from the time of pretrial hearings, or hearings in limine to the overruling of appellants’ amended motion for new trial. The partial statement of facts does not include the objections or proceedings which took place “during the trial” at the time Dr. Weary’s deposition was read to the jury.
Further, there is no showing that Dr. Weary was unavailable as a witness in person. In other words, it is not shown that appellants would have been compelled to do without Dr. Weary’s testimony even if they had declined to stipulate and Dr. Weary’s deposition had been excluded en7 tirely.
In any event, our Supreme Court has held that we are required to consider the entire record in determining whether to reverse a judgment because of some error committed in the course of the trial. Dennis v. Hulse, 362 S.W.2d 308, 310. See also Robinson v. Howard County, Tex.Civ.App., 287 S.W.2d 234. Since only a partial statement of facts is before us in this case, it is obviously impossible for us to consider the entire record.
We have carefully considered appellants’ motion for rehearing and have concluded that it should be overruled. It is so ordered.
Overruled.