Court Opinion

ID: 9830227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:59:44.509467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:16.396068
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Our attention is called to a copy of the county court docket entries, which we overlooked, because it appears in the transcript after the supersedeas bond and bill of costs. From it we quote: “Defendant plea, general denial, and contributory negligence.”
The jury answered “Yes” to the following issue: “Was the plaintiff, Anderson, negli-' gent on or about the 28th day of May, 1926, when said money was lost, if it was lost, by failing to use the means and precautions available to him to prevent the loss of said money, if any was lost?”
The evidence in this issue was: The room had a solid outer and a lattice inner door, each of which had a secure lock or bolt. Anderson-took a sleeping powder and retired about midnight; he left his trousers containing his money on a chair near the center of the room, and in view from the door. The outer door was left open, and the lattice door was closed, but not locked or bolted. These facts, which were not disputed, raised the issue of contributory negligence under the holding in Had-ley v. Upshaw, 27 Tex. 547, 86 Am. Dec. 654, from which we quote:
“We believe the rule of the law to be that the innkeeper will not be liable for the goods of his guest, if the loss is occasioned by the want of that ordinary care on the part of the guest, which a prudent man may be reasonably expected to take under all the circumstances of the . case, and the question whether or not the guest has taken such ordinary care is always a question of fact for the jury.”
Appellee contends that the court properly disregarded the jury’s answer on contributory negligence, because it did not contain the necessary element of proximate-cause. We overrule this contention. The trial court has not the power to disregard a jury finding merely because it is defective in some particular. Neither party objected to the charge as submitted and it will be construed in the light of the pleadings and evidence. it would have been a useless act for the court to submit the issue of plaintiff’s negligence in the abstract. The submission of the issue must be presumed as having some material bearing on the ease, and, in the absence of objection by either party, as embracing all controverted elementó essential to a decision on that issue. The trial court might have set aside the verdict and ordered a new trial, but he could not receive the verdict and disregard a material issue found therein, because of some defect.
Our former judgment is set aside, the trial court’s judgment is reversed, and judgment is here rendered for appellant (plaintiff in error).
Motion granted. Trial court’s judgment reversed, and judgment rendered for appellant.