Dillard v. Texas Electric Cooperative

In this personal injury and wrongful death case, we must decide whether the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to submit one of two different instructions on the defendants’ inferential rebuttal defenses. An inferential rebuttal defense operates to rebut an essential element of the plaintiffs case by proof of other facts. For example, the defendants in this case contended at trial that the fatal auto accident in issue was not caused by their negligence, but rather by the presence of cattle on the roadway or by the conduct of the cattle’s owner who allowed them to be there. The jury…