Wright v. MacK Motor Truck Corporation

336 S.W.2d 831, 1960 Tex. App. LEXIS 2332
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 23, 1960
Docket13517
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 336 S.W.2d 831 (Wright v. MacK Motor Truck Corporation) 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
Wright v. MacK Motor Truck Corporation, 336 S.W.2d 831, 1960 Tex. App. LEXIS 2332 (Tex. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinion

BELL, Chief Justice.

The appellant sued appellee, J. L. Schroeder, and Mack Motor Truck Corporation for damages allegedly received by her when an automobile driven by Schroeder ran into the back end of the automobile driven by appellant. An instructed verdict removed Mack Motor Truck Corporation from the case and no complaint is made by appellant of such action by the trial court. The jury found Schroeder, herein called appellee, guilty of certain acts of primary negligence, each of which was a proximate cause of the collision. It found appellant’s failure to signal her intention to decrease the speed of her automobile immediately before the collision was negligence that was a proximate cause of the collision. The jury also found appellant suffered no injury as a proximate result of the collision, but found damages of $400. The court rendered judgment on the jury verdict in favor of appellee that appellant take nothing.

Appellant assigns six Points of Error. Four Points assert that the answers of the jury to the following issues are so contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust:

1. Issue No. 13 finding appellant’s failure to signal her intention to decrease her speed was negligence.

2. Issue No. 14 finding such negligence was a proximate cause of the collision.

*833 3. Issue No. 24 'finding the damages suffered by appellant were only $400.

4. The answer to Special Issue No. 23 finding appellant suffered no injury.

Appellant also complains that there was no evidence to authorize the submission of Issue No. 23 which inquired as to whether appellant suffered any bodily injury in the collision.

The last complaint is that Issue No. 13 is a comment on the weight of the evidence.

There is only a partial statement of facts brought to this Court. It consists, according to the reporter’s certificate, of the testimony of appellant’s witnesses offered by appellant in establishing her case “in chief.”

Appellee in his brief raises the question as to whether we can consider the Points of Error complaining that the jury’s answers to issues were so contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust. On submission, we, in a question to appellant’s counsel, raised the same question. Counsel’s reply orally to this Court’s question was that he felt since he had stated in effect in appellant’s brief that the partial statement of facts brought forward all the testimony on the issues material to appellant’s appeal and this was not denied by appellee, there was an admission of the truth of the statement. Rule 419, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

We have read and reread appellant’s brief and do not find that statement asserted. We do find this statement: “The only testimony in the entire trial as to the manner in which the accident occurred comes from the plaintiff and the defendant.” This is not an assertion that the partial statement of facts contains all of the evidence given at the trial on the manner in which the collision occurred. Following the above quoted statement in appellant’s brief are quotations from the testimony of appellant and appellee as to how the collision occurred. It is to be noted that appellee in his brief did not admit that this represented all of the testimony, but to the contrary in his opening statement expressly pointed out the statement of facts did not include all of the evidence introduced at the trial. We are not, therefore, able to give effect to Rule 419, T.R. C.P.

We cannot appraise the Points of Error asserting that the jury’s answers to Issues Nos. 13, 14, 23 and 24 are so contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong. Under the holding in In re King’s Estate, ISO Tex. 662, 244 S.W.2d 660, in determining whether this is true, we must examine all of the evidence that was before the jury. We do not have all of that evidence. It is the duty of an appellant to present a record showing error. The duty does not rest with appellee.

On the day following submission appellant filed with the Clerk a letter, which we treated as a motion, asking to be allowed under Rule 428, T.R.C.P., to file a supplement to the statement of facts containing the balance of the testimony given in the trial court. This motion is opposed by ap-pellee.

This Court is by said Rule 428 vested with authority to allow the filing of a supplemental statement of facts. The court is not, however, required to do so. We feel that the rule should be construed liberally in favor of completing the record. However, this does not mean the request to complete will always be granted. Whether it will be granted will depend on the facts of each case.

In this case appellant’s motion for new trial, which was overruled June 5, 1959, of course asserted as grounds for new trial that the jury’s answers to Issues Nos. 13, 14, 23 and 24 were not supported by sufficient evidence. It should have been known that under In re King, supra, which *834 is quoted from in appellant’s brief, this Court would have to consider all of the evidence that was before the jury in determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s answers to those issues. However, appellant, as shown by the court reporter’s certificate, ordered only the testimony given by her witnesses on presentation of her case “in chief.” The partial statement of facts was approved the last week of July, 1959 by appellee’s counsel with the admonition that his approval was without prejudice to his right to move to strike same or to object to appellant’s failure to obtain “a full and complete statement of facts.” The statement of facts was filed with the Clerk of this Court July 28, 1959. The case was set for submission in this Court for June 9, 1960 on March 31, 1960. Appellee filed his brief on May 5, 1960, asserting this Court could not pass on appellant’s points asserting insufficiency of the evidence to support certain answers of the jury. The first request to supplement the statement of facts came the day following submission. In the motion it is stated that from appellant’s counsel’s notes he estimates there will be about 40 pages of additional testimony. This testimony has not yet been transcribed. There is nothing to evidence to us when the court reporter would be able to transcribe this testimony.

Because of all of these facts, and because to grant the motion would cause delay, interfering with the orderly disposition of this Court’s docket, the motion to have prepared and file a supplemental statement of facts is overruled.

We are, however, able, with a partial statement of facts, to pass on whether an issue is a comment on the weight of the evidence. Too, we can examine the partial statement of facts to see if there is evidence to support the submission of the issue at least to the extent that it shows evidence raising the issue, because if it is raised by the part of the record furnished us, the issue must be submitted even though the omitted part of the evidence may be in conflict. We do not pass on what the result would be if the evidence shown by the partial statement of facts failed to raise the issue.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Milacron Inc. v. Performance Rail Tie, L.P.
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2008
Richard Odell Martin v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2007
Meyer v. Worden
530 S.W.2d 904 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1975)
Coleman v. Pacific Employers Insurance Company
484 S.W.2d 449 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1972)
Carr v. Gregory
472 S.W.2d 819 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1971)
Danziger v. Brandes
457 S.W.2d 146 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1970)
Royal v. Cameron
382 S.W.2d 335 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1964)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
336 S.W.2d 831, 1960 Tex. App. LEXIS 2332, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wright-v-mack-motor-truck-corporation-texapp-1960.