Case ID: tex_17/html/0618-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wheeler, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

M. G. Dikes and others v. Jacob De Cordova.
    Where the officer certified that the plaintiff came before him, and being first duly sworn, made the following answers, and after giving the answers, continued, sworn and subscribed before me, &c., it was held that the certificate was strictly in conformity to the statute.
    Where the answers to interrogatories propounded by the defendants to the plaintiff, were filed on the 11th February, 1855, and exceptions to the same were filed on the 33rd of October, 1855; and the case being called for trial on the same day, and the plaintiff having announced himself ready for trial, the defendants presented said exceptions, which were overruled, dkc., it was held that the exceptions came too late.
    Error from Gonzales. Tried below before the Hon. Fielding Jones.
    Suit by defendant in error against plaintiff in error, on a promissory note. Answer of payment and failure of consideration, to prove which defendants propounded interrogatories to the plaintiff, the answers to which were filed February 11th, 1855. October 23rd, 1855, it being the second day of the Term, defendants filed exceptions to certain of the answers to the interrogatories, and moved that the corresponding interrogatories be taken for confessed. Same day the case being called for trial, the defendants, upon the plaintiff’s announcing himself ready for trial, presented their exceptions to the plaintiff’s answers to interrogatories, &c., which being heard and overruled, the parties announced themselves ready for trial, &c.
    The officer who took the answers to the interrogatories, certified that the plaintiff came before him, and being first duly sworn, made the following answers to the interrogatories (here follow the answers, then) sworn to and subscribed before me this first day of February, A. D. 1855. In testimony, &c.
    
      
      Parker & Nichols, for plaintiffs in error.
    I.—The certificate of the Notary Public, does not certify that the witness (plaintiff below) subscribed and swore to his answers before him. (Hart. Dig. Art. 739 ; Thompson v. Hall, 12 Tex. R. 139.)
    II.—The Court below erred in refusing to strike out the answers of plaintiff to the interrogatories 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and part of 8th. (See pages 8 and 9 of transcript.) Said answers not being categorical, and being so answered as to evade the interrogatories propounded. The statute is peremptory on this point. (Hart. Dig. Art. 736 and 737 ; Hirams and Donaho v. Coit, Dallam 449 ; Hughes v. Prewitt, 5 Tex. R. 294 ; Teas v. McDonald, 13 Id. 355 ; Scott v. Delk, 14 Id. 341.)
    
      Mills, for defendant in error.
   Wheeler, J.

There manifestly is no error in the judgment. The certificate of the Notary shows that the answers of the plaintiff to the interrogatories propounded to him by the defendants, were sworn to and subscribed before the officer; and the certificate is strictly in conformity to the statute. (Hart. Dig. Art. 739.) The answers were filed more than a year before the trial; and the motion to reject certain of them, and take the interrogatories as confessed for the want of an answer, came too late. (8 Tex. R. 129.) ' The judgment is affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.