Court Opinion

ID: 9834046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:15:39.644094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.229786
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In his motion for rehearing, the appel-lee asserts that this court made a voluntary exploration into the record and reversed the cause on points (appellant’s propositions 3 and 4) not raised by appellant in the lower court. The points pertain to the sufficiency of evidence, etc., and the contention is that there is no authority for our consideration of them, for the following reasons:
“(A) No objections were urged to the issue (No. 1) by the appellant in the court b'elow. * * * having complained of same in the court below by timely objections thereto, all technical objections as observed by this * ' * * court were by the appellant waived and this court erred in considering the same.”
Other objections follow, and the proposition is made:
“If the defendant (appellant) wished to object to Issue No. 1 he should have done so upon the trial of the cause, and having failed to do so, or to request any special issue, we fail to see wherein lies any fundamental issue in this matter that would authorize this * * * court to reverse on this ground.”
As stated, propositions 3 and 4 were the basis for this court’s consideration of matters of evidence and its probative force. These propositions were germane to assignments of error, as may be seen by reference to the appellant’s motion for a new trial, wherein he complained of these matters for the first time. While, as contended by the appellee, “no objections were urged to the issue by the appellant in the court below,” yet we do not think it follows, as appellee further contends, as shown by his objections above, that the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s verdict may not be considered by this court, even though no objections were urged to the issue.
Bet us examine the ‘appellee’s objections and contentions aforesaid in the light of article 2190, Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes, pertaining to the submission of special issues. It provides, among other things, that:
“A claim that the testimony was insufficient to warrant the submission of an issue may be complained of for the first time after verdict.”
This would seem to be sufficient authority to warrant this court in giving due consideration to the assignments questioning the sufficiency of the evidence, even though no objections were urged to the issue by the appellant in the trial court. So, when appellant presents a proper assignment and proposition questioning the sufficiency of the testimony to support the verdict, as indicated in this case, it is believed by this court’to be a mandatory duty on its part to go carefully into the record in the examination of such matters, and in doing so such act could hardly be regarded as an unauthorized consideration of the record. In further justification *1034of this court’s consideration of propositions 3 and 4, raising an important question for -the first time in the motion for new trial, we desire to call attentioh to the opinion of Chief Justice Phillips in Electric Express & Baggage Co.- y. Ablon, 110 Tex. 235, 244, 218 S. W. 1030, 1034, wherein he briefly states:
“There is but a single question in the case, and' I think the court’s opinion should be confined to it. The question is as to the right of a party, under Arts. 1970 and 1971 as amended by the Act of 1913, to complain, in a case submitted on special issues, of an adverse verdict upon a particular issue because- of the evidence being insufficient to sustain the verdict thereon, where there was no objection in the first instance to the court's submission of the issue-.
“Treating the special issues framed by the court as ‘the charge’ of the court within the intendment of amended Art. 1971, as I think they should be, the challenge in such a case is only of the verdict, and merely as a verdict without sufficient support in the proof. It is not a challenge of ‘the charge.’
“Under amended Art. 1971, it is only objections to ‘the charge’ which are to be considered as waived if not presented to the court before the charge is read to the jury. The statute does not say that' failure to so object to the charge shall, in a motion for a new trial, preclude complaint of the verdict as being without sufficient evidence to sustain it.”
Other authorities to the same effect are Navar v First National Bank of Breckenridge (Tex. Civ App.) 254 S. W. 126, 130; Short v. Blair & Hughes Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 230 S. W. 427; Chicago, R. I. & G. Ry. Co. v. Taylor (Tex. Civ. App.) 225 S. W. 822.
Believing it our duty, under the circumstances urged, to consider the testimony, as indicated by our original opinion, we have again carefully gone over the same, and a reexamination thereof confirms us in our opinion of the insufficiency, of the testimony to support the verdict «f the jury. ’
The appellee further contends that:
“Where there is any testimony, even a scintilla, it does not lie within the power of this court to disturb the verdict.”
We do not consider this a correct proposition of law. Property rights may not be acquired or lost so lightly. A more serious consideration is involved.
In Joske v. Irvine. 91 Tex. 574, 44 S. W. 1059, our Supreme Court seems to quote with approval from Hyatt v. Johnston, 91 Pa. 200, the following statement:
“Since the scintilla doctrine has been exploded, bo,th in England and in this country, the pre- - liminary question of law for the court is, not whether there is literally no evidence, or a mere scintilla, but whether there is any that ought reasonably to satisfy the jury that the fact sought to be proved is established.”
In Houston & T. C. R. Co. v. Loeffler (Tex. Civ. App.) 59 S. W. 558, Judge Pleasants, speaking for the court, said:
“We fully recognize the importance of a strict observance by the courts of the rule that jurors are the exclusive judges of the credibility of witnesses, and of the weight to be given to their testimony, but this rule neither requires nor contemplates that the mind and conscience of the court shall be entirely and unreservedly surrendered to the judgment of a jury upon all questions of fact that may arise in the trial of a case. When the verdict of a jury is so against the weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong, it is the duty of the court to set such verdict aside; and the grave responsibility thus placed upon the judiciary of determining whether or not the evidence in a particular case is legally sufficient to deprive a citizen of his property cannot be evaded.”
In any event, this court is of the opinion that any judgment should have a more substantial support than a mere scintilla of evidence.
In answer to issue No. 8, the jury found that there was a profit of $5,524.36 “made by the partnership of Perkins & Light-foot other than that divided” between them theretofore. The trial court entered a judgment for the plaintiff, decreeing recovery of that amount, but on motion for new trial, and evidently because the partners were equally interested in the enterprise, the judgment was modified to the extent of decreeing the plaintiff a recovery of one-half of such undivided profits.
By cross-assignments, the appellee complains that the court erred in not rendering a judgment “according to the clear meaning of the verdict in the full sum of $5,524.36,” and, in modifying his judgment on motion for new trial, granting a recovery of one-half of said amount instead of ordering a remittitur of the amount over and above that decreed.
We would not be authorized in giving the jury’s verdict a construction or interpretation different from that which it clearly appears to have. The language of the verdict is plain and unambiguous, the alleged interest of the partners unquestioned, and we see nothing erroneous in the construction given by the trial court to the verdict; nor did the court commit any error in making the judgment conform to the verdict as construed by him, since the cóurt had control over its orders duz-ing the term at which entered. The cross-assignments are overruled.
For the reasons assigned, the motion for rehearing will be overruled.