Callejo v. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, Inc

In Callejo v. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. 755 S.W.2d 73 (Tex. 1988), the court recognized that jurors "are not bound, as a matter of law, to accept the parties' expert testimony" and yet may not "leap entirely outside of the evidence in answering any question submitted to them." Id. at 75. Therefore, the jury in the court below was not bound to simply accept or reject Robinson's certification allocation method as a whole, and because Archibald testified to allocation by acreage, the jury could have employed that allocation method without "leaping outside of the evidence." The State expresses concern that the jury's award might involve the type of blending of expert opinions that was rejected by the court in Callejo. In Callejo, the jury in a condemnation proceeding had found a post-taking value of remainder property more than ten times higher than the largest amount provided by expert testimony. See id. at 74. The court, finding that the jury had blended testimony on pre-taking value with testimony on post-taking value, rejected the jury's answer on the post-taking valuation. See id. at 75-76.