Reddick v. Lindquist

484 S.W.2d 441, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2405
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 21, 1972
Docket17329
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 484 S.W.2d 441 (Reddick v. Lindquist) 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
Reddick v. Lindquist, 484 S.W.2d 441, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2405 (Tex. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

OPINION

BREWSTER, Justice.

While being towed on water skis behind a boat, Michael I. Reddick fell into the water. Another boat, owned by Oscar and Marilyn Lindquist, and at the time being driven by Marilyn Lindquist, then ran over Mr. Reddick and the propeller of the boat inflicted injuries that later caused Red-dick’s death.

Joan B. Reddick brought this suit for herself and as next friend of her minor son, Kevin Reddick, against Oscar and Marilyn Lindquist (husband and wife) seeking to recover damages resulting from the death of Michael I. Reddick, who had been the husband of Joan Reddick and the father of Kevin Reddick. The plaintiffs contended that Marilyn Lindquist’s negligence proximately caused Michael Red-dick’s death and the defendants contended that plaintiffs could not recover because Michael Reddick did, upon the occasion in question, himself, commit negligent acts that proximately caused his death.

A jury trial was had and the jury found that Marilyn Lindquist committed negligent acts that proximately ‘caused injuries to and the death of Reddick. These findings are not questioned on this appeal. The jury found that Michael Reddick was also negligent upon the occasion in that (I) he failed to keep a proper lookout and (2) he engaged in crossing the wake of the boat towing him at a time when a person using ordinary care would not have engaged in such a maneuver. Each such act of negligence was found to be a proximate cause of Michael Reddick’s injuries and death.

The trial court, because of the contributory negligence findings, rendered judgment for the defendants and the plaintiffs have appealed.

We affirm.

Special Issue No. 23 inquired in substance whether Reddick crossed the wake of the boat towing him, under circumstances where a person using ordinary care would not have engaged in such a maneuver. The jury answered “We do.” Issue No. 24 asked whether that act was negligence and Issue No. 25 asked whether that negligence was a proximate cause of the occurrence in question. The jury found the act to be contributory negligence and a proximate cause of the occurrence.

In plaintiffs’ first six points of error they contend that the trial court erred in failing to grant their motion to disregard the jury’s answers to each of those three special issues because (1) there was no ev *443 idence to support such answers and (2) because the evidence was insufficient to support such answers.

Special Issue No. 21 inquired as to whether Michael Reddick failed to keep a proper lookout upon the occasion and No. 22 inquired whether such failure was a proximate cause of the occurrence in question. The jury answered both of those issues in the affirmative.

In plaintiffs’ point of error No. 8 they contend that the court erred in failing to grant their motion to disregard the jury’s answer to Issue No. 21 because, as a matter of law, Reddick could not have been negligent in failing to keep a proper lookout because even if he had seen the Lindquist boat he could have done nothing besides what he did do in trying to save himself.

In their point of error No. 9 plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in failing to disregard the jury’s answer to Issue No. 22 because even if Reddick did fail to keep a proper lookout such failure, as a matter of law, could not have proximately caused the occurrence, because even if he had seen the Lindquist boat there was nothing he could have done to have avoided being run over.

We overrule plaintiffs’ points of error 1 through 6, inclusive, and their points of error Nos. 8 and 9.

In considering these points we have reviewed the entire record.

There was evidence in the record tending to show the following: that Mr. Red-dick was trying to improve his skiing form that day; a Mr. Mitchell, who was a fine skier, was in their boat facing Reddick so that he could see and criticize Reddick in the event he was doing anything wrong; a Mr. Christian was driving the boat towing Reddick; the Lindquist boat and the one towing Reddick reached the mouth of the slough they were coming out of on Lake Grapevine at about the same time; at this point the Lindquist boat turned left and started approaching the boat towing Red-dick at a 90 degree angle; the Lindquist boat was not going fast and the one towing Reddick was going 22 to 24 miles per hour; it appeared to Marilyn Lindquist that Red-dick had room to pass safely by and that he was safely up on his skis, and in control of the situation but she decided to cut to the left to give him more room; when she did this she glanced over her left shoulder and behind her to see that she was not cutting into the path of an oncoming boat; Reddick was skiing on a slalom ski which is a single ski where the skier places one foot on the ski directly in back of the other; when Mrs. Lindquist saw Reddick, before glancing back, he was directly behind the towboat, but as she glanced back Red-dick started skiing out to the right behind his towboat, over its wake and generally in the direction of the oncoming Lindquist boat; this was a rapid movement to the right and could have been caused by Red-dick pulling strongly on his tow rope and heading his ski to the right; there is a trough behind the towboat and a wake or a hump of water to each side; as Reddick crossed his boat’s right wake he lost his balance and fell into the water; Reddick fell while Mrs. Lindquist was glancing over her shoulder and she did not know that he fell; when she looked back around her boat blocked her view of Reddick; she did not see him until a moment before she hit him; her husband warned her of Red-dick’s presence in the water and she immediately took evasive action by cutting sharply to the left but it was too late; when Reddick fell it appeared that he then started looking for and trying to retrieve his ski; he appeared not to see the Lindquist boat; after Reddick fell he was making moves to go get his ski; Reddick must have heard the Lindquist boat before he saw it for he gave no indication of knowing of its presence until he suddenly wheeled to his left just before he was hit; during all this time there was nothing but open water between Reddick and the Lindquist boat and there was nothing to block Reddick’s view of that boat; there *444 was nothing to keep him from looking in that direction; the least likely place for a skier to fall is directly behind the boat or outside the wakes; it is not unusual for a slalom skier to lose his balance and fall and this is true of the best skiers; and Mr. Reddick was the perfectionist type who wanted to do everything just right and that was why he wanted Mr. Mitchell to watch his movements and criticize him if he did anything wrong.

We hold that there was evidence to support the jury’s answers to Issues Nos. 23, 24 and 25 and that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s answers to such issues.

A Court of Civil Appeals, when affirming a case in which sufficiency of the evidence points are involved, is not required to set out the evidence pro and con on the issue and we will not attempt to do so any more than we already have. See Jackson v. International Service Insurance Co., 450 S.W.2d 896 (Fort Worth, Tex.Civ.App., 1970, ref., n. r. e.) and cases there cited.

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Bluebook (online)
484 S.W.2d 441, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2405, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reddick-v-lindquist-texapp-1972.