In Santander Consumer USA Inc. v. Enterprise Fin. Group, Inc., the Fifth Court addressed preservation of charge error.
Specifically, the Court held that the appellant failed to object specifically to the broad form submission of Question No. 1, which asked if the appellant failed to comply with the agreement. It observed that the appellant “did not object to the submission of Question No. 1 at the charge conference or before the charge was read to the jury,” and reminded that submitting a proposed charge or jury questions pretrial is not enough to preserve a charge-error issue.
Importantly, this analysis means that “[t]he use of a global denial of objections and requests based solely on the parties’ pretrial submission of proposed jury charges does not preserve issues of charge error for appellate review.” No. 23-0770-CV (Dec. 31, 2024) (mem. op.).