Court Opinion

ID: 9643417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:28:29.058823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:00.424715
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant has in his motion for rehearing strongly complained that our statement in the original opinion in connection with *295points 3 and 4 wherein we stated as follows, “The appellant did not request a definition of excessive speed and his objection alone was insufficient to save the error.” Appellant’s objection was as follows:
“The defendant specially objects to special issue No. 37 of the Court’s charge and says that it is improper to inquire whether plaintiff’s driver, Pipkins, was driving 'his dump truck at an excessive rate of speed, in that the term, ‘excessive rate of speed,’ requires a definition. The jury is thereby left to speculate upon the issue and is given no guide or yardstick with which to make an intelligent answer thereto. In this connection, the defendant respectively shows to the Court that the definition of ‘excessive rate of speed’ would be at a speed that was greater than was reasonable and prudent under the conditions then existing at the time and on the occasion in question.
“Furthermore, the defendant objects to the Court’s charge in that the Court has not taken into consideration whether Pipkins was driving his truck at a speed that was greater than reasonable and prudent under the conditions then existing at the time and on the occasion in question having regard to actual and potential hazards at 3:15 a. m. in the morning, and when Pipkins had three hours sleep, and here tenders the Special Requested Charge No. 3.”
Appellant’s special requested charge No. 3 is copied in our original opinion and is not a request for. a definition, but for a special issue.
The only theory upon which appellant can base his assertion that a definition was requested is that it was so requested in the objection above quoted. He is sustained in that theory under our Supreme Court’s holding in approving the Commission of Appeals’ opinion in Robertson & Mueller v. Holden, 1 S.W.2d 570; however, since that opinion, Rule 279 has been adopted and, in our opinion, rendered the Robertson-Holden opinion no longer the rule in Texas.
Judge J. B. Dooley, then a member of the Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Rules of Procedure, stated in 20 Texas Law Review 32, at page 38 (1941) : “The present practice is that a party may save the point by a mere objection to the failure of the court to submit a proper explanation or definition pertinent to some term of technical meaning contained in the trial court’s charge. The new rule, changing the practice on that point, will make it necessary for the party who finds any fault with the failure of the court to submit a definition or explanatory instruction to request a substantially correct definition or explanatory instruction as a predicate for any appellate complaint, and as I read it, this requirement holds good whether the missing definition or explanatory instruction relates to a question material to the complaining party’s theory of the case or material to the other party’s theory of the case.”
Appellant’s request in his objection, in our opinion, does not comply with Rule 279 as now worded, nor the spirit of such rule, since such a request is contained in an instrument which covers eleven pages in the transcript dictated by appellant’s attorney at the time the charge was tendered him for objections by the trial court. Such is not a separate request. It is true that under Rule 272 as amended the objections to the charge may be dictated and written up later. However, Rule 276 applies specifically to requested issues, definitions and instructions and provides that the court’s action on such request shall be endorsed on such request. Rule 279 provides: “Failure to submit a definition or explanatory instruction shall not be deemed a ground for reversal of a judgment unless a substantially correct definition or explanatory instruction has been requested in writing and tendered by the party complaining of the judgment.”
The exception contained in the last paragraph of the Rule is not applicable here. In Great American Indemnity Co. v. Sams, 142 Tex. 121, 176 S.W.2d 312, at page 314, syl. 5, in passing on this direct question, it is stated:
“Thus it is seen that the insurance carrier was not objecting to the definitions given by the trial court, but was requesting the trial court to give additional instruc*296tions which the insurance carrier thought would be beneficial to it.
“Under the rule quoted and the conditions stated, the insurance carrier cannot be heard to complain on appeal without having tendered a substantially correct definition or instruction.”
See also Barnett v. Barnett, Tex.Civ.App., 206 S.W.2d 273, writ not applied for, Syls. 1, 2.
We have also considered all other assignments in the motion and, finding no error in our former opinion and disposition of the case, they are overruled.
Motion for rehearing overruled.