Court Opinion

ID: 9676046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:13:20.385736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:03.642222
License: Public Domain

McGILL, Justice
(concurring on motion for rehearing).
When this case was submitted and for several weeks thereafter the writer was seriously ill and therefore did not hear the oral argument or participate in the original decision. Because one of the chief points presented on appellant’s motion for rehearing involves a question of fact as to which the jurisdiction of this court is final, I have given very careful consideration to the motion, have read the entire statement of facts, the briefs of both parties, and the motion for rehearing and reply thereto. There can be no question but that this court not only has the power but that it is its duty to set aside a jury finding and to remand the cause for another trial when such finding is so against the great weight or preponderance of the testimony as to carry conviction that to uphold the verdict would be clearly wrong and manifestly unjust; that in deciding this question this court considers all of the evidence and not merely the evidence favorable to the finding. Appellant has cited the authorities at great length which enmiciate this rule but I think the rule is so elementary that no citation of authorities is required to support it.
In deciding whether or not a verdict should be set aside under the rule this court-does not consider the credibility of witnesses. It can not do so, since the witnesses are not before it and it is not qualified to judge their credibility. Its function is limited to a consideration of the quantity and quality of the evidence and it can and frequently does give more weight to quality than .to quantity. Passing on the quality of the testimony is always a difficult and troublesome function. There can be no compromise between the testimony of one of the plaintiffs, A. V. Sanchez, and the witnesses Umbenhauer, Price, Lozano, Holguin and Bracero. Each'of these witnesses' without equivocation testified as to the presence of a hole at the base of the recess or chute in the rear wall of the basement of plaintiffs’ building prior to the rain which did the damage to plaintiffs’ goods in their basement, of which they complain, and the digging of the hole in the alley. The witnesses Umbenhauer, Price and Holguin also testified that they had pointed out the hole to this plaintiff and suggested that he have it fixed, that this would prevent the seepage which had occurred in the basement prior to the time of the rain which caused the damage complained of. This plaintiff categorically denied that there was such hole, and that any of the witnesses had pointed any such hole out to him. As between this plaintiff and these witnesses it is largely a question of credibility. The jury necessarily must have believed that the testimony of A. V. Sanchez was true and that of these five witnesses false, or they could not have answered question No. 6 as they did. They have passed on the credibility of this plaintiff and these witnesses, and as stated, it is no part of the function of this court to pass on such credibility. As to the quality of the evidence of course the plaintiff A. V. Sanchez was an interested party, since he *746was asserting a claim to something over $3,-000 against the city. The witnesses above named I think were also interested parties— interested to the extent that if the damage was caused by their negligence in digging the hole in the alley and permitting it to remain uncovered, thus causing the damage to plaintiffs, such negligence was a serious reflection on them, especially the witnesses Umbenhauer, Superintendent of the Water and Sewerage Department, and Price, a Supervisor of the Sanitary Sewer and Storm Sewer Division of the Department of Water and Sewerage of the City of El Paso. It certainly would have been a reflection on their ability and their capability to hold the positions they did hold with the city. The same may be said of the interest of the witness Lozano, who' was a foreman in this kind of work. Certainly he was interested in not performing the work assigned to him in a negligent manner; therefore, although there is a difference in degree of the quality of the evidence, yet I think that these witnesses were interested to a certain extent. A different rule as to quality, I think, is applicable to the testimony of plaintiff E. A. Sanchez and the witnesses Garcia, Flood, Meraz, Martinez, Sedino and Neva. It appears that the plaintiff E. A. Sanchez was not present when the witnesses Umben-hauer, Price and Lozano testified that they pointed out the hole to plaintiff A. V. Sanchez and advised him to have it fixed, according to their testimony. The testimony of this plaintiff and of the witnesses above named amounts to no more than that they were in the basement numerous times prior to the rain and the digging of the hole in the alley, had every opportunity to observe the recess or chute in the rear wall of the building and to see a hole in the base thereof if there had been such a hole, and that they did not see such hole. The testimony is negative in its nature and of a different quality than the positive testimony of the other five witnesses that there was such a hole; that they saw it. If we were to act on the numerical strength of the testimony (without any regard to the jury’s finding, which involves credibility, I should be forced to dissent from my brethren in their decision that finding No. 6 should not be set aside. Plowever, I think that this court is not so limited. Appellant also urges that the physical facts clearly point to the existence of the hole before the rain; that it is unreasonable to suppose that the accumulation of water in the hole in the alley with the dirt that was admittedly in such hole could exert enough pressure on a rock wall to push it in or wash it in, even though the testimony of appellant’s witness Umben-hauer as to the maximum pressure caused by the water in the hole be disregarded. I do not think that the physical facts point so clearly to a hole before the rain that the case should be disposed of on this basis. There is abundant testimony that prior to the rain water had seeped into the basement and it seems quite reasonable to me that an accumulation of water outside of the rock wall, even though mixed with earth, may have caused a seepage through the mortar of the wall, gradually started a flood and resulted in a washout. I have noted with interest the fact that there is no testimony as to any large rock or pieces of rock having been discovered in the basement after the rain.
Although I entertain grave doubt whether in the light of all the evidence the jury’s answer to question No. 6 should be permitted to stand, I resolve that doubt in favor of the trial court’s judgment and in accord with the views of my brethren and concur in overruling appellant’s motion for a rehearing.