Hicks v. Fredericks
| Decision Date | 29 December 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 6018,6018 |
| Citation | 286 S.W.2d 315 |
| Parties | Olen HICKS, Appellant, v. Gloria FREDERICKS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Taum, Camp & Ball Beaumont, for appellant.
Adams, Browne & Sample, Beaumont, for appellee.
The appellee, Gloria Fredericks, who will also be referred to as plaintiff, sued for damages because of personal injuries she alleges she sustained, and because of damage done her automobile, when, on June 18, 1953, at a street intersection in Beaumont, her automobile, which she was driving, was in collision with one driven by the defendant. On a jury's verdict, together with a stipulation regarding some elements of damage, she recovered judgment for the sum of $9,051.08. The agrregate was made up of $8,500 assessed by the jury, $240 as the stipulated amount of medical expense the plaintiff had incurred, and $311.08 as the stipulated amount of automobile damage. The defendant, after his motion for new trial was overruled, duly perfected his appeal.
The matters which are complained of all pertain, in one way or another, to the damages awarded. The charge to the jury is attacked because it authorized the jury to consider elements of damage which, it is claimed, had no support in the evidence; viz., past and further loss of earnings or of earning capacity, and future pain and suffering. And because the jury was authorized to consider these elements, the damages assessed by it are attacked as being excessive and without support in the evidence.
In three of his points of error, points one, too, and five, the appellant directly alleges that for stated reasons the trial court erred in submitting to the jury certain portions of the charge pertaining to damages, and the reasons assigned are sufficient to make clear that the basis of complaint is as above stated. However, a trial court's charge to a jury cannot be attacked for the first time on appeal. Rule 272, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Consequently, if the points are to be considered as presenting anything for review regarding the charge, they must be construed as complaining of the trial court's action in overruling defendant's objections to the charge. And the only objections to those portions of the charge under consideration which were timely presented and urged were the following:
'The defendant objects and excepts to the submission of Special Issue No. 18 (damage issue), and more particularly as pertaining to the instruction thereto, for the reason that the evidence introduced in connection with this question is so insufficient that any answer made by the jury in connection with same would have to be passed purely upon speculation and not upon medical evidence or other evidence introduced in the trial of this cause. 'The defendant further objects and excepts to the charge in connection with such issue, for the reason that the evidence is both insufficient and inconclusive as to the loss sustained by Gloria Fredericks, as well as the injuries, if any, received from the collision; and that the same would allow the jury to speculate purely upon this element of damages.'
Such objections were properly overruled. There was unquestionably evidence which required submission of a damage issue to the jury, and the foregoing objections were insufficient to direct the trial court's attention to the fact that the issue and its accompanying instructions authorized the jury to consider particular elements of damage not raised by the evidence. In other words, if it was in fact the defendant's purpose to object to the charge for the reasons now assigned on appeal, he failed to point out distinctly in his objections the matters to which he was objecting and the...
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Fifty-Six Thousand, Seven Hundred Dollars in U.S. Currency v. State
...86 (Tex.App.--Fort Worth 1982, PDRR); Marek v. Baylor County, 430 S.W.2d 220 (Tex.Civ.App.--Eastland 1968, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Hicks v. Fredericks, 286 S.W.2d 315 (Tex.Civ.App.--Beaumont 1955, no writ). As for this hearing, the Appellant has waived any objection to the testimony by failing ......
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Houston Lighting & Power Co. v. Reed
...point must be construed as complaining of action of the trial court in overruling appellant's objection to the charge. Hicks v. Fredericks, Tex.Civ.App., 286 S.W.2d 315. Rule 274, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that 'A party objecting to a charge must point out distinctly the matt......
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...workable Rule 301, which provides for judgment non obstante veredicto, or to avoid conflict between the two Rules. Hicks V. Fredricks, Tex.Civ.App., 286 S.W.2d 315, 318. Appellants in this case direct none of their points on appeal at the lack of any evidence, or the insufficiency of the ev......