Court Opinion

ID: 9654238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:11:11.29606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:07.179878
License: Public Domain

GRAVES, Justice
(dissenting).
Appellant’s statement of the nature and result of this cause below has been acquiesced in by the appellee, with the addition of a detail or two, noted by her, and is as follows ■
“This is a suit for property damage, arising out of a collision involving appellee-plaintiff, Emma A. Nicholson’s automobile, and appellant-defendant, Heavy Haulers, Inc.’s truck, and also arising out of a collision involving appellee’s automobile, and a truck belonging to Hugo C. Werner, and operated by Frank Walker the last two-named individuals being defendants in the trial court.
“Upon a trial to a jury, judgment was rendered for appellee Nicholson against appellant Heavy Haulers, Inc. (in the sum of $771.15) and (that, she take nothing against) Hugo C. Werner.
“Appellant’s motion for instructed verdict, motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and motion for new trial, were duly presented to the trial court, and by it overruled. Appellant's objections to the charge of the court were duly presented to the trial court, and by it overruled, and this cause was regularly brought to this Court for review on appeal.”
In other words, this was a two-collision case, that is, appellee’s auto was allegedly hit twice on the occasion involved, first by the truck belonging to the corporation, Heavy Haulers, Inc., and second — a short while later- — by a truck belonging to the individual - person, Hugo C. Werner; but the trial court rendered judgment for *255Werner, and he passed out of the case, neither side to this appeal having complained of that action.
Since the $771.15 amount of the damages awarded appellee was stipulated between the parties nothing is presented for review here, except what the appellant, Heavy Haulers, Inc., thus, in clear-cut statement, reduced its several points of error to, to-wit: “ * * * appellee Nicholson has not discharged the burden of showing that her damages were proximately caused by appellant, and that the charge of the Court was erroneous in that it assumed facts in dispute and the two proximate-cause issues predicated on acts of primary negligence were duplicitous and multifarious and confusing to the jury.”
It is held that appellant’s contentions should be overruled, in substance, for these, among other, counter-considerations: (1) As this member of the Court reads the record and the statement of facts, the evidence the trial court heard concerning the chain of proximate causation between appellant’s negligence on the one hand, and the appellee’s damage on the other, was clearly sufficient to raise a jury issue in favor of the appellee’s charges of negligence against the appellant’s truck driver. Carey v. Pure Distributing Corp., 133 Tex. 31, 124 S.W.2d 847. (2) The record, as this member of the Court reads it, fails to show that the objections to the court’s charge appellant so claims it made under its 4th and 6th points of error were reduced to writing, and at the time brought to the attention of the trial court. Wherefore, they were waived. Rules 272 and 274, T.R.C.P.; Lone Star Gas Co. v. Fouche, Tex.Civ.App., 190 S.W.2d 501, error refused, w. m. (3) Special Issues Nos. 2 and 4, of the court’s charge, were not vague, indefinite, and confusing, as charged by the appellant. Those issues, in substance, were these:
“No. 2
“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such action on the part of John A. Simmons, if you have so found, was a proximate cause of the damages to plaintiff’s automobile?
“Answer We do’ or ‘we do not’.
“No. 4
“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the action of John A. Simmons in leaving the Heavy Haulers, Inc., truck disabled upon the traveled portion of the highway when there was not sufficient light to render clearly discernible persons and vehicles on the highway at a distance of 500 feet, if you have so found in answer to the preceding issue, without immediately displaying a red burning fusee, or a red burning electric lantern on the side of the truck was a proximate cause of the damages to plaintiff’s automobile?
“Answer We do’ or We do not’.”
It seems to me too clear for extended argument that the jury could not have failed to understand that under these issues — especially in the light of the preceding ones, and the court’s directions concerning them — before they could give an answer in favor of the appellee to these two issues Nos. 2 and 4, they must have first found that the negligence of the appellant’s driver had caused all the damage resulting from both the collisions referred to and described supra.
The record further appears to show that when the counsel for appellant objected to these quoted special issues Nos. 2 and 4, the trial court offered to further particularize the language 'of them, which proffer appellant’s counsel refused. It would seem, therefore, that no belated objection thereto should be considered upon the appeal.
Further discussion is deemed unnecessary, since these conclusions are thought to determine the merits of the appeal. They require that the judgment should be affirmed. This protest that it is not so ordered, is respectfully entered.