Kuhlman v. Medlinka

Citations

• 29 Tex. 385

Syllabus

<p>In rendering a judgment on a special verdict, the court must be confined to the verdict, and cannot look to the facts proved, but not found in the verdict. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 1469, Note 565.)</p> <p>Where the verdict is found upon special issues alone, the court cannot look beyond it to any other fact, apparent in the record, in aid of the judgment.</p> <p>Where the jury found that lots were conveyed by absolute deed to secure a loan of $125; that the rents were to go against the interest; that the rents were worth $3 per month; but did not find that the contract was usurious, the court cannot say it was usury, but will set off the interest against the rents. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 3942, Note 932.) The jury might well have found the contract usurious, but the court is confined to the verdict.</p> <p>A witness who speaks the German and English languages may read letters and receipts which he wrote in German, and which a party signed, to the jury, the witness improvising a translation, and telling the jury what the letters would be in English, without the witness having been sworn as an interpreter. (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 3761.)</p> <p>The 108th section of the act to regulate proceedings in the district court reads as follows: “In civil suits the jury may find and return a special verdict in writing, on issues made up under the direction of the court, declaring the facts proved to them; any verdict so found shall be conclusive between the parties as to the facts found.” (Paschal’s Dig., Art. 1469, Note 565.)</p> <p>And the 99th section makes it the duty of the judge, after the argument of the cause, to “ deliver a written charge, and to so frame his charge as to submit questions of fact solely to the decision of the jury, deciding on and instructing them as to the law arising on the facts, distinctly separating questions of law from questions of fact.” The charge should be after the argument, and there can be no objection to framing special issues, since the statu