Court Opinion

ID: 9768188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:46:38.236842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:37.382178
License: Public Domain

BATEMAN, Justice.
I respectfully dissent because I do not believe Special Issue No. 22 was so general or global as to warrant our disregarding the jury’s answers to it and to Special Issue No. 23. I may set forth my views on this point more fully in a supplemental opinion.
DISSENTING OPINION
I respectfully dissent. I do not believe we are authorized to disregard or set aside the findings of contributory negligence.
Appellee had alleged that Mrs. Smith was negligent in attempting to go across Lemmon Avenue at a time when there was a very large amount of traffic thereon, and in failing to turn to the right and go with the traffic. It was undisputed that this collision occurred on a busy thoroughfare shortly after five o’clock in the afternoon; that Lemmon Avenue consisted of four traffic lanes, two for eastbound and two for westbound traffic, and that all four lanes were crowded with very heavy traffic. There were no signal lights or stop signs or other device to control that traffic at that place, but the vehicles attempting to cross Lemmon Avenue there faced a stop sign. Mrs. Smith testified that when she stopped at this stop sign she waited there from five to seven minutes for an opportunity to cross; during which time the traffic light at the next corner (the intersection of Lemmon Avenue and Turtle Creek Boulevard) changed about three times; that it was at the busiest time of the day, and that the opening she attempted to go through “was just enough for me to go through,” and that just before ap-pellee’s car collided with her car she, thinking she was out of the intersection, turned to her companion and stated that they had “made it.” Both Mrs. Smith and appellee testified that at times the lanes were completely blocked with traffic and that there was a truck coming toward Mrs. Smith which was trying to make a left turn, but which obstructed the traffic in the inside lane of the traffic going in the same direction in which appellee was traveling.
It was appellee’s theory that at that particular time of day the rush-hour traffic on Lemmon Avenue created a condition so hazardous that a person of ordinary prudence, in the exercise of ordinary care, would not have ’ attempted to cross it at right angles, even though that person obeyed the stop sign, had the right of way and a legal right to cross the street. The trial court submitted this theory to the jury and the jury’s answers to the issues were favorable to appellee. I do not know of any other way it could have been submitted.
In the majority opinion it is said that the specific acts “which went to make up the question of ‘traffic conditions then existing’ were submitted to the jury”, but those specific acts so submitted were only the alleged acts of negligence of appellee and Mrs. Smith. Under appellee’s theory, Mrs. Smith could have been entirely blameless in all of those particulars and still be negligent in propelling her automobile into the seething maelstrom of fast-moving vehicles that constituted the rush-hour traffic of Lemmon Avenue. The majority opinion, it seems to me, ignores this contention and merely says that only specific acts should be submitted. I know of no way that this inquiry could be fragmentized into more specific acts.
The only elements of Mrs. Smith’s conduct submitted to the jury and the findings thereon were: (17) she did not fail to keep a proper lookout; (19) she failed to apply her brakes but (20) this was not negligence. My view as to her proper lookout is expressed by Justice Calvert in Traywick v. Goodrich, Tex.Sup.1963, 364 S.W.2d 190, 191, as follows: “Certainly one is negligent who looks both ways while stopped before *456entering the intersection and then proceeds blindly ahead.”
The finding that she was not negligent in failing to apply her brakes, in my opinion, relates to the time of, or immediately prior to, the collision itself, and not to the time she began her crossing of Lemmon Avenue. She undoubtedly applied her brakes when she stopped in obedience to the stop sign; so the answers to Special Issues Nos. 19 and 20 could not relate to that time or situation.
Chief Justice Hickman, in Grieger v. Vega, 153 Tex. 498, 271 S.W.2d 85, a wrongful death case, said, in approving a special issue which inquired simply whether the killing of plaintiff’s son was wrongful, “The method employed by the trial court of grouping several elements of an ultimate issue into one special issue is to be commended.”
In Plains Drilling Co. v. Christy, Tex.Civ.App., 25 S.W.2d 276, no wr. hist., which involved a claim and counterclaim for damages because of a collision between plaintiff’s house, which was being moved at 3:00 a. m. on a public highway, and defendant’s truck, the Amarillo Court of Civil Appeals said the trial court erred in refusing to submit this issue: “Was the plaintiff negligent in moving the house along the public road in question at the time of the collision?” It was the defendant’s contention in that case that, aside from specific acts of plaintiff’s negligence with regard to lights on the house, speed, lookout, etc., the very act of moving the house on a public highway was in itself negligence, and the appellate , court agreed.
See also Serna v. Cochrum, Tex.Civ.App., 290 S.W.2d 383, wr. ref. n. r. e.; Flowers v. Wilson, Tex.Civ.App., 319 S.W.2d 199, no wr. hist.; and Manley v. Wilson, Tex.Civ. App., 313 S.W.2d 339, wr. ref. n. r. e.
In Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Snider, 159 Tex. 380, 321 S.W.2d 280, the inquiry as to whether the plaintiff had failed to keep a proper lookout was broken up into five separate issues, and this was criticized by the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Calvert, as follows:
“We can perceive of no sound reason why one special issue on failure of Snider to keep a proper lookout for his own safety as he approached the crossing, related to the facts and circumstances in evidence, would not have been adequate to cover all of the issues mentioned. This matter has not been preserved on appeal, however, and we mention it only in the hope that it may serve to induce trial judges to simplify special issue submission as much as the facts of the case will permit.”
It is also stated in the majority opinion that the issue as submitted improperly permits the jury to take into consideration any fact or circumstance which they might consider to be pertinent or material to the issue. I do not think this is a valid criticism. The phrase “under the traffic conditions then existing” did not give the jury in this case any greater latitude or permit any wider consideration by the jury than the time-honored phrase “at the time and on the occasion in question.” I think a phrase, “under the conditions then prevailing” or some similar phrase, might be said to be implied in practically every special issue submitted in a negligence case. A special issue as to whether the failure of a motorist to apply his brakes was negligence necessarily includes the consideration of the conditions prevailing at the time and place of the occurrence, and the jury must necessarily in such a case take those conditions, such as weather, width and condition of the road, traffic controls, speed, and many others, into consideration in passing on whether the motorist was or was not negligent in failing to apply his brakes. Only by way of illustration, Special Issue No. 9 in the case at bar was: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that, the action of Marshall Chase in changing from the inside to the outside lane of Lemmon Avenue was negligence?” The issue does not contain the phrase “under the traffic conditions then existing,” but I submit that the sub*457stance thereof is necessarily implied in the issue, and would be so understood by the trial court, the jury and the attorneys for both parties. Why, then, did the inclusion of the phrase in Special Issue No. 22 make it so global as to render the answer thereto utterly worthless?
I would affirm the judgment because of the finding of contributory negligence; but if found to be in error in that, I would remand the cause in order that the defensive issue in question could be submitted in proper form.