Robertson & Mueller v. Holden

• Decision Date: 11 January 1928
• Docket Number: (No. 884-4958.)
• Citation: 1 S.W.2d 570
• Parties: ROBERTSON & MUELLER v. HOLDEN.<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 570

1 S.W.2d 570

ROBERTSON & MUELLER v. HOLDEN.^*

(No. 884-4958.)

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section B.

January 11, 1928.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Second Supreme Judicial District.

Suit by Lois Holden, by next friend, against Robertson & Mueller. Judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals (297 S. W. 327), and defendants bring error. Judgments of both courts reversed, and cause remanded.

See, also, 294 S. W. 667.

Chas. T. Rowland, of Fort Worth, and Burgess, Burgess, Chrestman & Brundidge, M. N. Chrestman, and L. E. Elliott, all of Dallas, for plaintiffs in error.

Houtchens & Clark, of Fort Worth, for defendant in error.

SPEER, J.

This is a personal injury suit instituted by Lois Holden, by next friend, against Robertson & Mueller, based upon negligence in causing the overturning of an ambulance in which the plaintiff was riding. The ambulance was carrying the plaintiff's brother to a hospital on an emergency call, and the plaintiff alleged she was invited by the driver to ride in the ambulance to the hospital, and on its way it came in collision with another vehicle and was overturned. The case was tried upon special issues, resulting in a judgment for the plaintiff in the sum of $750. This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals for the Second District (297 S. W. 327), and a writ of error was granted to Robertson & Mueller upon the sixth assignment in their application, complaining of the failure of the trial court to define the term "new independent cause" in connection with his definition of "proximate cause."

Article 2189 of Vernon's Annotated Texas Statutes, providing for the submission of cases upon special issues, declares:

"In submitting special issues, the court shall submit such explanations and definitions of legal terms as shall be necessary to enable the jury to properly pass upon and render a verdict on such issues."

In the nature of things, the statute has not attempted to declare what "legal terms" shall be explained or defined further than "shall be necessary to enable the jury to properly pass upon and render a verdict on such issues." Reasonable necessity, considering the term or terms used, then, should be the test. Ordinary words of simple meaning, of course, need not be defined. But those terms which in law have a distinct fixed meaning which an ordinary person would not readily understand should, upon proper request, be defined. This is recognized in the universal practice in negligence cases of the giving of a definition of such terms as "ordinary care," "negligence," "proximate cause," "unavoidable accident," and the like. In this case, the trial judge, in obedience to this rule of practice did define these very terms. The definition of "proximate cause," as given, is as follows:

"Proximate cause is that cause which in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any new independent cause, produces an event, and without which that event would not have occurred, and to be the proximate cause of an event it must have been reasonably anticipated by a person of ordinary prudence that the injury or some similar injury would occur. There may be more than one proximate cause of an event."

The defendants timely objected to this definition, "because the same furnishes no test or rule to guide the jury in determining what is a new independent cause such as will break sequence, and because the term `new independent cause' is a technical term requiring some explanation in order that it may be properly applied by the jury." No charge was prepared by the defendants and requested of the court, but the objections complaining of the omission in the court's charge were specific to the point. We think, in view of the fact that the term "new independent cause" has as well-defined meaning in law as the more common expressions "ordinary care," "negligence," "proximate cause," and the like, that it should have been explained or defined in the charge.

It is the right of a party, upon...