Court Opinion

ID: 9831510
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:09:03.0933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:35.421551
License: Public Domain

Oh Motion for Rehearing and to Certify.
[9] We have not held, as appellee’s counsel seems to think, in this case, or in the case of Fort Worth & Denver City Railway Co. v. Hawley, 235 S. W. 659, decided at the same time, that special issues as to evidentiary facts ought to be submitted. We have expressly stated “that only issues as to ultimate facts should be submitted.” But the ultimate fact itself is a specific fact. For instance, good pleading requires that the plaintiff in a suit for damages resulting from a defendant’s negligence should specify the act the doing of which is charged as being negligent. In the effort to sustain or disprove the negligence charged many facts and circumstances may be offered in evidence and may be properly considered in arriving at the ultimate conclusion. Such facts are the evidentiary facts. Now, in submitting an issue as to the ultimate fact, it would be obviously improper, we think, to submit a general issue as to whether the defendant was negligent without reference to the particular charge of negligence in the pleading. The issue submitted should be whether the defendant was negligent in doing the specific act alleged. Such would be the issue made by the pleading which it would be the duty of the court on proper request to submit. Article 1985, R. S. We have carefully considered the opinion of the Commission of Appeals recently handed down in the case of T. & N. O. Ry. Co. v. Harrington, 235 S. W. 188, and do not think that our decision in these eases is in conflict therewith.
The motions will be overruled.