Court Opinion

ID: 9831762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:20:36.278098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:37.719648
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
If, to say of a clerk such as Peaster, that he sold shoes for $2 and “did not ring the money up” imports the same as saying that he sold the shoes for $2 and “stole” the money, that can in any view be true only in a special or qualified sense. The natural meaning of the words in themselves very obviously carry no such import. Such import, therefore, if it exists results from some understood connection or association of the two ideas, (1st) the theft (more properly embezzlement) of the price of the shoes, and (2nd) failure to ring up the money. Is it common knowledge that if a clerk in the circumstances of Peaster in this case makes a sale, collects the money and does not at once “ring it up” on the cash register, if any, the only reason (none other appearing) is that he intends to steal or embezzle the money? That, it is believed, is a fair statement of the question for decision, or perhaps more accurately speaking of the question determinative of the question for decision.
Aside from the case cited in our original opinion, we know of none which furnishes a real precedent. The question undoubtedly is one embraced in the subject of evidence and that branch thereof dealing with matters of common knowledge and judicial Knowledge, notice or cognizance. For present purposes we may assume that if our question deals with a matter of common *307knowledge, then it is also a matter of judicial knowledge or notice.
“Judicial notice,” according to the black letter text of Corpus Juris Sec-undum, “is the cognizance of certain facts which judges and jurors may properly take and act on without proof because they already know them.” 31 C.J.S., Evidence, p. 509, § 6. For example according to the same authority, “Judicial notice will be taken of the general course of business and the usual methods of transacting it.” Id., p. 543, § 28. In the numerous subdivisions of the subject we find none which seems to include certainly and exactly the facts of this case. Under one subdivision entitled “Meaning of Words and Phrases”, it is said: “Judicial-notice may be taken of the usual meanings of words and phrases.” Id., p. 648, § 67. But our question is not what does the language- — -“He is the man who sold me the shoes for $2.00 and did not ring the money up” — mean, but rather, is the act thus described so invariably accompanied by an intent to steal or embezzle that as a matter of common knowledge the utterance of the words implies the affirmation of such intent. Considering — as we freely do — that the court could and should take judicial notice of the meaning of the words, it does not follow necessarily that it could properly take judicial knowledge of such particular implication if any from the words. The implication is not a necessary one. It isn’t inherent in the natural import of the words. If the implication exists at all, it does so, as already said, because of the association of the fact implied with the fact expressed by the words.
We doubt if it is a matter of common knowledge that business establishments generally have the system of registering sales such as the evidence shows was employed in this case. If only some establishments have such a system, but the -majority do not, then the view that the question under consideration does not involve a matter of common knowledge has support in the principle that courts cannot take judicial notice of such facts as are known, if at all, only by a specially informed class of persons. Lickfelt v. Jorgenson, 179 Minn. 321, 229 N.W. 138. Under this rule, if every employee of Montgomery Ward & Company and every employee of other businesses using the same system of registering sales did understand that failure to ring up a sale implied a dishonest appropriation of the money, it would not follow necessarily that such implication was a matter of common knowledge, and that therefore the court and jury could take judicial cognizance of it.
We think our conclusion is further supported by a test as follows: “The test has been said to be: (1) Is the fact one of common, everyday knowledge in the jurisdiction, which every one of average intelligence and knowledge of things about him can be presumed to know? (2) Is it certain and indisputable?” 31 C.J.S. p. 513, § 9. Under said “2nd” subdivision is this note: “It is not permissible for the court to take judicial knowledge of a fact that may be disputed by competent evidence.” Id., Note 88. In this record there is competent evidence disputing the fact that failure to ring up a sale implies theft or dishonest appropriation of the money.
After further careful consideration we are not convinced that we were in error in our conclusion upon that point as expressed in the original opinion.
We have not held that the alleged slanderous statements were not made in the presence or hearing of -others. Hence, the Fourth Assignment of Error asserting that we did is without merit.
Appellee argues that “The question itself [meaning the question constituting part of the alleged slander] implies knowledge on the part of Pounders that he did not know that she [Willmark, Inc. employee] claimed that Peaster had sold the shoes and had not rung up the money, and yet you say there is no evidence of a conspiracy.” We cannot assent to the correctness of the premise. It seems clear to us that Pounder’s question, while as said ⅛ the original opinion it assumed that some employee' of Montgomery Ward & Company had done so, carried no assumption or implication that Peaster was such employee.
Our action in remanding the case, rather than rendering judgment for the appellants, was prompted by the view that it was required by the decision in Williams v. Safety Casualty Co., 129 Tex. 184, 102 S.W.2d 178, wherein the Supreme Court, apparently contrary to its former decision in Mitchum v. Chicago, R. I. & G. Ry. Co., 107 Tex. 34, 173 S.W. 878, and other cases, committed itself to the proposition that even where a court of civil appeals reverses a case on the ground of error of a *308trial court in refusing to instruct a verdict for Appellant, nevertheless, upon such reversal the case should be remanded, rather than rendered, if it appears the case was tried on an erroneous theory of law or was not fully developed. Mindful of the fact that in cases of this sort, “any damage however slight has been said to be sufficient to sustain the action” [McQueen v. Fulgham, 27 Tex. 463, 469] it does not appear conclusively that no special damages could be recovered. Hence, we are not persuaded that we should be influenced by appellee’s suggestion to the effect if the judgment of reversal stands that we ought to render judgment, made as it is with the express reservation that we are not requested so to do.
It is, therefore, our conclusion that the motion for rehearing should be overruled, and it is accordingly so ordered.