Court Opinion

ID: 9831860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:25:59.991188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:38.678388
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant’s fourth assignment, which was sustained by our original opinion, attacks the verdict as excessive upon each element of the recovery, but the propositions following' the assignment are limited to the element of discomfort and annoyance. Appellee, therefore, insistently urges that we erred in considering the evidence relating to elements other than the one attacked by the propositions.
It is time, as insisted, that ordinarily questions presented in an assignment, not followed by an appropriate proposition, are deemed to have been waived; but in the case before us we did not feel it to be our duty to follow this rule. The rule has no application to fundamental error, and, as pointed out in our original opinion, a very material part, as shown by the evidence, of both the elements of sickness and of discomfort and inconvenience occurred more than 30 days prior to December 2, 1913. the date of the appellee’s first complaint to the city, and we are of the opinion that it was fundamentally wrong in the charge of the court to authorize a verdict covering such damages as so occurred more than 30 days prior, to December 2, 1913, and fundamentally wrong to give judgment therefor. The provision of the special charter of the city of Ft. Worth, granted by special act of the Legislature of the state of Texas approved March 10, 1909 (Loe. & Sp. Acts 31st Leg. c. 31), having reference to the notice mentioned is section 4 of subchapter 11, and reads as follows: “The city of Ft. Worth shall not be held to” be liable “for and on account of any damages or injury of any kind whatsoever to persons or property, unless the person claiming same, his agent or attorney, shall within thirty days after such injury or damage has been sustained serve notice in writing upon the board of commissioners, giving the day and date, the time and place where such injury or damage occurred, and the nature and character of the injury.” Section 6 of the same chapter provides that: “This act shall be taken and held to be a public law, and all courts and tribunals shall take judicial cognizance and knowledge of the contents and provisions thereof, and it shall not be necessary to plead or prove the same.”
As will be seen by an examination of the authorities relating to that subject cited in our original opinion, a compliance with section 4 by giving notice of any “damages or injury of any kind whatsoever to persons or property”' was a prerequisite to the establishment of liability of the city for any of the damages occurring, more than 30 days prior to December 2, 1913. Indeed, Mr. Associate Justice BUCK, at least, is of the opinion on re-examination that we should have sustained appellant’s second assignment of error, complaining of the action of the court in refusing to give the special instruction noticed in our original opinion disposing of that assignment; the error in the main charge being only one of omission, and the rule announced in Railway Co. v. Barnes, 168 S. W. 991, not being applicable. While the views above stated were not mentioned in our original opinion, in view of the fact that we had concluded to reverse the -judgment, nevertheless they originally were entertained by us in an unexpressed form, and now present our convictions upon reconsideration. So that it can hardly be said that our reversal of the judgment comes within the meaning of Rev. St. art. 1631, requiring the suggestion of a re-mittitur in cases where it shall be the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals that the verdict and judgment of the trial court is excessive, and for that reason only shall remand the cause. We therefore feel that we cannot give effect to the contention so vigorously presented on the motion for rehearing that this court should, as a condition for affirmance, indicate the amount of the excess in the verdict and judgment, even though the majority were in error, as it seems, in entertaining the view expressed in the Rasmussen case that article 1631 did not apply in every case in which the judgment was reversed because only of an excess in the verdict and judgment. Wilson v. Freeman, 185 S. W. 993.
We conclude that the motion for rehearing should be overruled.