Court Opinion

ID: 9828712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:38:38.371037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:52.103696
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[4] The assignment in appellants’ brief, upon which this court reversed and remanded the cause, is that the trial court erred “because the verdict and the judgment are against the great preponderance of the evidence in this,” following the statement with succinct and particular specifications wherein the testimony, by numerous witnesses, by strong inference, was opposed to said verdict. It is now contended that there was no complaint by appellant that the verdict was the result of prejudice or passion, or an improper motive by the jury, and hence we should not have considered said assignment.
This objection, unless the statement in the brief, to the effect that said assignment is a mere statement, argumentative, and not in accordance with the rules, is made the first time in this motion for rehearing. The case of Benford Lumber Co. v. Knox, 168 S. W. 33, in a sense, sustains the position of the appellee, wherein the ctourt says that a complaint presented by an assignment that the preponderance of the evidence did not justify the jury’s findings does not raise the question that a finding is so manifestly against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to lead to the conclusion that the jury was influenced by an improper motive. We admit the technical distinction; However, it would seem that an assignment that a verdict is against “the great preponderance of the evidence” would present the thought, and import a meaning, of a manifestly wrongful verdict, because any verdict against the “great” preponderance of the evidence (in accentuating preponderance) is against the greater weight of the evidence to that extent as to exhibit an injustice. Evidently, though not probably appropriately merged into the assignment, that is the idea intended to be conveyed by the appellant, for at the close of the assignment, and purporting to be a part thereof, it is said:
“We submit to the court that, sjiid verdict and judgment being so clearly against the great preponderance of the evidence, the court should, in its discretion and the power invested upon it under the law, set the verdict aside and grant a new trial herein.”
Upon the whole, we shall let the assignment stand.
[5] Serious complaint is made that this court has improperly exercised such power. Necessarily, the exercise of a power of this character carries with it the idea of some discretion, for the reason that, in all cases of this character, there is testimony, though the appellate court thinks it is overborne, to sustain the verdict avoided. The appellee quotes the language of Chief Justice Stay ton in Niagara Insurance Company v. Lee, 19 S. W. 1030, wherein he says:
“The Supreme Court will not reverse on the ground of the insufficiency of conflicting- evidence to sustain the verdict, though it may be of opinion that the evidence somewhat preponderates the verdict.”
The discretion exercised in cases of this character as to the amount of preponderance, it may be true, involves a difference at times of individual judgment on the part of the judges, which arises from the nature of the question and the temperamental composition of different courts. Take the case of Choate v. San Antonio & Aransas Pass Ry. Co., 90 Tex. 83, 36 S. W. 247, 37 S. W. 319. A passenger positively testified that in attempting to pass from one car to another, as a train was about to stop at a station, he was thrown from the cars by a sudden jerk. However, the testimony of several unimpeached witnesses was to the effect that plaintiff thereafter stated to them that he had stepped off the train when it stopped at the depot, and that when he went to step back he missed *721the step, or slipped, and the wheel caught his foot. The Court of Civil Appeals said, stressing particularly the undisputed admissions of plaintiff, that the jury was not warranted in finding the injury was caused as alleged, and necessarily the appellate court disregarded the testimony of the injured passenger. The Supreme Court, after granting the writ, first argued that there was no evidence to show that the jerk was anything unusual in stopping and starting the train, under ordinary circumstances. On motion for rehearing the question of the railway’s negligence was reconsidered, the court holding there was evidence in that respect, hut saying, however:
“Although there may be sufficient evidence in a case to require the court to submit it to the jury, yet if the verdict rendered thereon is against the preponderance of the evidence, to that degree which shows that manifest injustice has been done, the trial court may, and should, grant a new trial. The judge should not invade the province of the jury and take from it the decision of a question which properly belongs to it; neither should he abdicate the functions of his officejand permit the prerogatives of the jury to be perverted to the accomplishment of wrong.”
The cause was necessarily reversed and remanded, as the Supreme Court has no power over the action of a Court of Civil Appeals in that respect.
In regard to our comments of the failure of the plaintiff to testify, it is said that it is not shown in this case that the husband was in attendance upon the trial. He was the plaintiff in the case, and the recovery belonged to the community estate, and the duty, under the law, devolved upon him to take care of the litigation; that is the principal reason the law makes the husband the sole party plaintiff. It - is shown that he challenged the witness Lair the day before the trial (though he failed to contradict his statement on the stand), who testified that Jones stated to him that his wife’s sickness was caused by the dragging of a cotton sack. It is true the wife’s testimony was positive that the jerk of the train threw her to the platform of the coach. The inferences, however, from' the testimony of numerous witnesses that the train was not disconnected, and that there was no jerk or jar after it was at rest, for the purpose of permitting passengers to alight at Elm street; the testimony of certain women friends, in effect that Mrs. Jones stated that she was taken sick before she ever arrived at Dallas; the testimony of Lair, though his reputation for veracity was impeached, of the statement of the husband of the dragging of a cotton sack being the cause of his wife’s sickness, undenied, however, as to the particular fact; the fact that Mrs. Jones admitted that she dragged a cotton sack between cotton rows for a week just prior to the alleged injury; the admissions in this case that the woman was sick before Dallas was reached, though attributed by her to snuff and the heat; the fact that her husband, the plaintiff, saw the fall and did not see fit to corroborate her weakened testimony, after having been so strongly assailed by the appellant; the fact that a 12 year old daughter, normal so far as this record shows, immediately preceded the mother to the depot platform.and necessarily heard the jar and the jerk of the train, testified to by her mother (if she did not see the mother fall), and shown to have been in the courtroom at a particular time of the trial, and not placed upon the witness stand to bolster the mother’s assailed testimony on the pivotal point of the ease, added to the testimony of the defendant’s witness producing the inferences from its standpoint that no such jerk and collision ever occurred — impel this court to again reiterate, stronger than the statement in the original opinon, that according to this record this is an unjust verdict.
“Judicial tribunals are established to administer justice between litigants, and the first and most important step to that end is the ascertainment of the truth of the controversies which come before them. It is only when the truth is ascertained that the law can be properly applied in the just settlement of disputes. Litigants owe the duty of assisting in every legitimate way in the elucidation of the truth. When a defendant can by his own testimony throw light upon matters at issue, necessary to his defense and peculiarly within his own knowledge if the facts exist, and fails to go upon the witness stand, the presumption is raised, and will be given effect to, that the facts do not exist.” Bastrop State Bank v. Levy, 106 La. 586, 31 South. 164-166.
The rule, of course, is not as strong in this state, as stressed by Justice Blanchard of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, where there is-testimony sufficient to require the submission of the case to the jury; however, it has a commendatory ring as a forcible presentation, persuasive and appealing in certain character of cases. Notwithstanding the forcible and able argument of plaintiff’s counsel, this court will not upon such a record make a fetish of a jury’s verdict.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.