Court Opinion

ID: 9831870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:26:38.577066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:38.729298
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[9] The appellant, in his motion for rehearing, additional to other grounds, strenuously insists that the court was in error in not sustaining the sixteenth assignment t of error, which called into question the following paragraph of the main charge of the court: “Now, if you are satisfied, from a preponderance of the evidence, that the telephone wires described in the pleadings were sagging down across defendant’s right of way, as alleged by the plaintiff, so as to constitute an obstruction over said right of way, unnecessarily endangering the life of plaintiff, and that the defendants knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care could have known, of the existence of such obstructions across said right of way, and by the exercise of such care could have prevented plaintiff from being struck by said wires and injured,” etc. —and further asserting that we were in error in applying rule 62a, if such a charge were erroneous. Appellant’s proposition, as was stated in our original opinion, is leveled at that part of the charge addressing the issue to the jury, “if the defendants knew” of the obstruction across the right of way, and was a submission to the jury of an issue, without any evidence whatever to support it. While we held, in our former opinion, that the evidence was sufficient to submit to the jury the issue of the exercise of ordinary care to discover the sagging condition of the wires over the main track, we held that the testimony was insufficient to raise the issue of actual knowledge, and further held, applying the rule, that the error, if any had been committed, upon a consideration of the whole record, was insufficient to reverse the case upon that particular question. Of course, in no event would this court apply the rule where a plain and palpable error had been committed in violation of a statute affecting the substantive rights of a litigant; and, where such a condition is presented, the fundamental law necessarily would overcome the rule. Schuette v. Bishop, decided by us January 25, 1913.
Aside from the rule, which we think is applicable, it will be noticed that, in considering this whole record with reference to this particular matter, the appellant requested special charges, parts of which we will quote as appropriate in sustaining the ruling of the court. In special charge No. 3, requested by the appellant, we find this language: “That in order to warrant a finding that negligence, as an act or as an omission, the same not amounting to’ wanton wrong, is the proximate cause of any injury, it must *641appear that the injury was the natural consequence of the negligence or the wrongful act; that the clanger ought to have been seen in the light of the attending circumstances ; and you are therefore charged, if you find and believe from the evidence in this case that the wires, which caused the injury, were strung across defendant’s right of way, that the same were cut by an independent agency, and that the defendants, in the light of the testimony, did not know that the loires were cut, and in the light of the attending circumstances, as shown by the evidence, had no reason to presume that they were cut or in a dangerous condition, then and in that event, should you so find, you are charged to find for the defendant.” We extract this language from defendant’s special charge No. 5: “If, therefore, you find and believe from the evidence that the wire was loosened by the housemover, and was otherwise safe, and but for which loosening the accident would not have happened, then you are charged, if you so find, that the plaintiff cannot recover, and your verdict should be for the defendants, unless you further find that they had actual notice of the condition of the wire, or something had transpired which, in the ordinary course of affairs, should have called their attention to its condition, a sufficient time before the accident, to have enabled them to have prevented the accident, and as.to this burden is upon the plaintiff, because you are charged that such cannot be presumed.” We excerpt this language from defendant’s special charge No. 10: “They [meaning the defendants] cannot be charged with negligence in regard to the same [meaning the conditions which caused the injury], unless they had' actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition, at least long enough’ before the injury was inflicted to have prevented it, and you are charged that the burden is upon the plaintiff to show such actual or constructive notice; and, unless he has done so, your verdict should be for the defendant.”
Under the ease of International & Great Northern Railroad Company v. Sein, 89 Tex. 63, 33 S. W. 216, 558, and other decisions of the courts of this state on the proposition of invited error, we are inclined to think that the numerous submissions of special charges, although refused, submitting the proposition, negatively and affirmatively embodied by the trial court in the fifth paragraph of his main charge, were of such a character and addressed to the attention of the trial court in such a way that the defendant, in the case on the trial thereof, invited error, if any was committed. It is true that the defendant is requesting the court to affirmatively charge its theory on the defense in this case; but the language specially embodied in charge No. 5, addressed to the attention of the court, although the court’s charge is in different language, is calculated to induce a trial court into the belief that there was sufficient evidence to charge actual notice of the condition of the wires, as it embodies the substantive elements in another form of the charge complained of. It is true that the first special charge in this record was the converse negatively stated of the proposition of law complained of; but taking it, especially in connection with charge No. 5, which proposition, in substance, is the. same as in the main charge, complained of, indicates an insistence of the very matter. The doctrine of invited error is based upon estoppel.; and as Chief Justice Gaines said in the case of Gresham v. Harcourt, 93 Tex. 157, 53 S. W. 1021, “for example, if a special instruction be requested, and the court give the instruction, either in the form requested or in substance, the giving of the charge cannot be successfully urged as error.”
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.