Wallace v. Spencer Construction Co.

452 S.W.2d 17, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2001
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 20, 1970
DocketNo. 17421
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 452 S.W.2d 17 (Wallace v. Spencer Construction Co.) 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
Wallace v. Spencer Construction Co., 452 S.W.2d 17, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2001 (Tex. Ct. App. 1970).

Opinion

CLAUDE WILLIAMS, Justice.

Norman J. Wallace brought this action against Spencer Construction Company, [19]*19Inc. to recover damages for personal injuries. Following a jury trial a special issue verdict was returned in which the jury found that the employees of Spencer Construction Company, Inc. were guilty of three acts of negligence which proximately caused Wallace’s injuries and also found that Wallace was guilty of two acts of contributory negligence which proximately caused his injuries. Wallace filed his motion to disregard the jury findings convicting him of contributory negligence but such motion was denied and the trial court proceeded to render a take nothing judgment.

Appellant brings to us ten points of error in which he assails the submission and the jury’s answers to special issues which convicted him of contributory negligence. The issues, and their answers, which are attacked, are:

Special Issue No. 12: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that on the occasion in question Norman Wallace failed to keep such a lookout for his own safety as a person using ordinary care would have kept?”, to which the jury answered “Yes”. Conditioned upon an affirmative answer to Special Issue No. 12 the court submitted Special Issue No. 13, „ as follows: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such failure was a proximate cause of his injury?”, to which the jury answered “Yes”.

Special Issue No. 15: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that on the occasion in question the failure of Norman Wallace to tell the Spencer Construction Company foreman that he was going under the rear of his truck was negligence?”, to which the jury responded “Yes”. Conditioned upon an affirmative answer to this issue the court inquired: Special Issue No. 16: “Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that such negligence was a proximate cause of his injury?”, to which the jury responded “Yes”.

Appellant divides his points into two groups. In the first group he contends that (a) Special Issue No. 12, and its related Issue No. 13, constituted a global submission of the issue of proper lookout and should not have been given; and (b) that there was no evidence to support the submission to the jury of Issues 12, 13, 15 and 16 or there was no evidence of probative force to support the jury’s affirmative answer to each of Special Issues 12, 13, 15 and 16 so that such answers should have been disregarded and a judgment rendered in favor of appellant for the amount of damages found by the jury.

In his second group of points appellant contends that the judgment of the trial court should be reversed and remanded because the answers of the jury to Issues 12, 13, 15 and 16 are contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the credible evidence.

Before proceeding to a resolution of the points presented by appellant we take note of appellee’s first and second counterpoints wherein it objects to our consideration of certain of appellant’s points because of alleged defects in perfecting the record. In the first counterpoint appellee says that appellant’s assignments of error contained in his motion for new trial, and which form the basis for the “no evidence” and “insufficient evidence” points, do not clearly and distinctly specify the ground of error complained of but are too general to require consideration by this court. We have carefully considered the various assignments and find that the same are quite adequate. We think the appellant has illustrated substantial compliance with Rules 320, 321, 322 and 374, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Appellee’s Counterpoint 1 is overruled.

By its second counterpoint appellee objects to our considering certain of appellant’s points relating to the submission of the issues set forth above because the objections and exceptions leveled at the [20]*20court’s charge were not shown by the record to have been examined by the trial court and overruled by him as required by the rules. While this point may have had merit originally any defect in the record has been cured by the filing of a supplemental transcript which reveals a nunc pro tunc order by the trial court certifying that in truth and fact he did timely consider and overrule the objections and exceptions leveled to the court’s charge, all in compliance with Rule 272, T.R.C.P. Appellee’s second counterpoint is overruled.

Appellant vigorously attacks the court’s action in submitting to the jury Special Issue No. 12, and its companion Issue No. 13, on the grounds that its form is such as to really amount to the submission of'a general charge or a broad and global submission which would permit the jury to take into consideration numerous facts going to make up the question of “proper lookout”. In support of these contentions appellant cites us to no cases condemning the submission of a “lookout” issue but attempts to compare this type of situation with the “proper control” issue which has been condemned by our Supreme Court in Barclay v. C. C. Pitts Sand and Gravel Co., 387 S.W.2d 644 (Tex.Sup. 1965) and also the case of Roosth & Genecov Production Co. v. White, 152 Tex. 619, 262 S. W.2d 99 (1953), wherein the issue inquired as to “whether the derrick was defective” and was held to be global. We think that a careful consideration of the cases relied upon by appellant reveal distinctions which are clearly evident and render the authorities inapplicable to the situation presented here.

An analysis of Special Issue No. 12 demonstrates that the court confined the consideration of the jury to the specific determination of whether Wallace failed to keep a proper lookout “for his own safety” as a person using ordinary care would have kept under the circumstances demonstrated by the evidence before the jury. To submit the case in any other fashion would call for the submission of multiple fragments of the same question. In H. E. Butt Grocery Co. v. Johnson, 226 S.W.2d 501 (Tex.Civ.App., San Antonio 1949, writ ref’d n.r.e.), a slip and fall case, the defendant had pleaded that the plaintiff had failed to keep a proper lookout for her own safety. The trial court submitted a number of fragmentized issues and then submitted the general issue in practically the same wording as is submitted in this case. Justice Norvell, in reversing plaintiff’s judgment, said that the appellant was entitled to a straight-out and clear-cut submission of its properly pleaded affirmative defense of lack of proper lookout. In Traywick v. Goodrich, 364 S.W.2d 190 (Tex.Sup. 1963), the court approved the general issue of “proper lookout” and said that such issue should not be fragmentized. Again in Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Snider, 159 Tex. 380, 321 S.W.2d 280 (1959), Justice Calvert condemned the “submission of multitudinous special issues”, saying: “We can perceive of no sound reason why one special issue on failure of Snider to keep a proper lookout for his own safety as he approached the crossing, related to the facts and circumstances in evidence, would not have been adequate to cover all of the issues mentioned.”

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452 S.W.2d 17, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2001, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wallace-v-spencer-construction-co-texapp-1970.