BEAUMONT – The Ninth Court of Appeals recently affirmed a damages award in a car wreck suit that Judge Kent Walston, 58th District Court, presided over.
The appeal stems from a lawsuit Chad and Sasha Rebert brought against Julio Miranda-Lara.
Court records show that on May 18, 2014, the Reberts were traveling on Highway 82 in Jefferson County. Miranda-Lara was traveling behind them with at least one car between them.
Miranda-Lara and another vehicle both attempted to simultaneously pass the Reberts’ car on the left as the Reberts began a left turn. While the vehicle in front of Miranda-Lara avoided any contact with the Reberts’ vehicle, Miranda-Lara collided with the couple’s vehicle on the driver’s side.
At trial, a jury found Miranda-Lara to be solely negligent in the cause of the accident and ordered him to pay the Reberts personal injury damages.
On appeal, Miranda-Lara argued that the trial court erred when it allowed an officer to testify as to his opinions without evidence of expert knowledge, when it provided an instruction in its jury charge on negligence per se, and when it refused to submit Miranda-Lara’s requested jury instructions regarding emergency and unavoidable accident.
“Because we cannot conclude that the improper inclusion of the negligence per se instruction probably caused the rendition of an improper verdict, it did not constitute harmful error,” states the Ninth Court’s Aug. 31 opinion. “We overrule Miranda-Lara’s second and third issues.
“Having found that Miranda-Lara failed to preserve error in his first issue and having overruled all other issues, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.”
Appeals case No. 09-18-00325-CV