Court Opinion

ID: 9828687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:37:34.031375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:51.858092
License: Public Domain

On Behearing.
In fhe original opinion we erroneously referred to the only assignment of error sustained as the nineteenth assignment of error. It should have been the twentieth assignment of error, which reads as follows: “The court erred in stating in the presence and hearing of the jury that the plaintiffs were bound by the questions propounded by plaintiffs and answers given in the deposition of Wong Pan then being offered in evidence by the defendants.” Consideration of appellees’ motion for rehearing has convinced us that this assignment of error is not sufficiently' supported by the record in that the bill of exceptions intended to supply the record pertaining to this assignment does not show that objection was made and exception taken to the particular action of the court which constitutes the subject-matter of the assignment of error. The bill shows that the action of the court to which objection was made and exception taken was not the making of a statement by the judge in the presence and' hearing of the jury, but the refusal of plaintiffs’ request “to instruct the jury that the deposition was that of the adverse party (defendant Wong Pan) and that the plaintiffs were not bound to accept the testimony of such adverse witness as true,” etc. It thus appears that the bill of exception wholly fails to support the assignment of error. It does support assignment of error No. 21, which is as follows: “■* ⅜ ⅜ the court .erred in refusing to instruct, at the plaintiffs’ request, the jury that the plaintiffs were not bound to accept such testimony of the defendant in the deposition as true.” We cannot sustain assignment of error No. 21. Had the court given such instruction it would have been error, as same was upon the weight of the evidence. It was subject to the further objection that it was a special charge or instruction not proper to be given in a case submitted upon special issues. Standard v. Texas Pacific Goal & Oil Co. (Tex. Oiv. App.) 47 S. W.(2d) 443. Something more was embraced in this request than a mere admonitory instruction or direction to the jury to disregard the judge’s previous statement complained of in the twentieth assignment of error.
We have, therefore, concluded that the motion for rehearing should be granted, our former judgment reversing and remanding the case set aside, and that judgment should -be rendered affirming the judgment of the court below, all of which is accordingly so ordered.