Hill v. Clayton

827 S.W.2d 570, 1992 WL 60048
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 16, 1992
Docket13-91-234-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 827 S.W.2d 570 (Hill v. Clayton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hill v. Clayton, 827 S.W.2d 570, 1992 WL 60048 (Tex. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

NYE, Chief Justice.

A jury awarded appellant damages for personal injuries resulting from an assault and from appellee Clayton’s negligence. The jury imputed no negligence to appellee S.W. Bell Telephone Company (Bell). The trial court denied appellant’s motion for *572 new trial, from which he now appeals by eleven points of error, claiming that the jury’s damage award and its finding that Bell was not liable were against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence and were the result of jury bias, passion, prejudice, or other improper motive. He further complains of improperly submitted jury questions and erroneous instructions. We affirm the trial court’s judgment in part and reverse in part.

Clayton lives on the same street as Hill’s mother. Hill, a frequent visitor at his mother’s, was watching the house while she was away. Road repairs near Clayton’s home interrupted his telephone service. In order to restore it, Bell laid a temporary line from Clayton’s house, above-ground, to a terminal box located on the telephone company’s easement. The easement was across the street on Hill’s mother’s property. The line had no tags or markings on it to indicate the telephone company laid it.

When appellant next checked on his mother’s house, he noticed the line running from his mother’s property, connected to Clayton’s house. Thinking that Clayton had wiretapped his mother’s telephone, appellant cut the line. Soon thereafter, appellant left for the beach and returned to his mother’s at around 10:00 p.m. Discovering that his phone service was out again, and knowing that Bell would probably not send someone to fix it on a Sunday, Clayton spliced the temporary line to restore his service.

Upon returning, appellant found the line reconnected and attempted to pull it apart at the splice. The line came loose from its connection on the Clayton house, and appellant proceeded to roll it up from his position in the street. Clayton emerged from the house with a shotgun. What took place during the ensuing confrontation was hotly disputed at trial. According to Clayton, he found appellant on his property, drunk, and threatening violence. Clayton ordered appellant to release the line. Instead, appellant threw the line at Clayton. Clayton fired two warning shots, which he thought missed appellant. Appellant testified that he was not on Clayton’s property. He claimed that, at Clayton’s order, he immediately released the line and turned back to his vehicle. Clayton then fired several shots and hit him in the foot.

The jury found that appellant was not on Clayton’s property when Clayton shot him, that Clayton assaulted appellant, that Clayton was fifty percent (50%) negligent, appellant was fifty percent (50%) negligent, and Bell was not negligent. The jury awarded $2,500 in damages.

By points one through four, appellant claims he is entitled to a new trial and attacks the jury’s damage award as being against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence and the result of bias, prejudice, passion or improper motive. A point urging that the verdict is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence requires us to examine the entire record, considering all of the evidence, whether favorable to the verdict or unfavorable. The record must contain some evidence to support the jury’s verdict. We reverse only if the verdict is so contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence that it is clearly wrong and manifestly unjust. Cain v. Bain, 709 S.W.2d 175, 176 (Tex.1986); Hipp v. J.D. Lowrie Well Service, Inc., 800 S.W.2d 668, 670 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1990, writ denied); O’Kelly v. Jackson, 516 S.W.2d 748, 750 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1974, no writ).

The jury awarded $2500 in total damages to compensate appellant for physical pain and mental anguish, medical care, loss of earning capacity, physical impairment, and disfigurement. The charge did not request, and the jury did not specify, how much of the $2500 went to each element of damages. 2 The jury awarded no *573 money for future damages. Appellee Clayton argues that such a global submission of the damages issue requires the appellate court to assume that the jury awarded something for each element of damages, as Texas law requires. See Alarcon v. Circe, 704 S.W.2d 520, 521 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1986, no writ); Edmonson v. Keller, 401 S.W.2d 718, 720 (Tec.Civ.App.—Austin 1966, no writ). In this case, the amount of damages given by the jury was so small that it is clearly wrong and manifestly unjust. Appellant claimed medical expenses of $8,939.45. He established by uncontroverted expert testimony that the medical bills submitted were reasonable and necessary for treatment of the gunshot wound. The award of $2500 for all the damages is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. See Gray v. Floyd, 783 S.W.2d 214, 217 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, no writ). We are unable to find the jury’s damage figure from any combination of figures presented by appellant’s evidence.

■ The evidence showed that appellant was born with a congenital dislocation of the hip, for which he had had multiple surgeries. Before the accident his right leg was short, his foot deformed, and his ankle stiff. He walked with a limp, and he wore a prosthesis, which was damaged by buckshot pellets from the shooting.

Clayton stated that he fired warning shots at appellant, but he did not think that he had actually hit appellant. Appellant claimed that Clayton shot him in his right foot with a shotgun. The evidence showed that appellant’s prosthesis and foot were hit with 00 buckshot pellets. C.E. Anderson, a firearms expert, reconstructed the parties’ positions during the shooting, and he testified for appellant. As part of his reconstruction investigation, Anderson examined appellant’s prosthesis and determined that appellant was hit by a direct shot, from approximately twenty feet, and that seven of the nine pellets in the cartridge struck the prosthesis. Evelyn Brun-son of the Manvel Police Department testified that when she arrived at the scene of the shooting, she found appellant lying on his kitchen floor in a pool of blood.

The evidence was undisputed that appellant received emergency room treatment for a gunshot wound to the foot, which physicians described as follows: “there were three entrance wounds and two exit wounds, shell and bone fragments in the foot, and broken bones in the foot.” Appellant later underwent two operations and a skin graft. Dr. Frank Ivey testified by deposition that the expenses from UTMB-Galveston and Alvin Community Hospital were reasonable and necessary medical expenses due to appellant’s gunshot wound. After nine days, hospital physicians released appellant in a cast, with crutches, and scheduled him for follow-up.

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Bluebook (online)
827 S.W.2d 570, 1992 WL 60048, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hill-v-clayton-texapp-1992.