Case ID: tex_66/html/0338-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Willie, Chief Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. S. E. Fossett.
    (Case No. 5912.)
    1. Practice—Conclusions of fact—If the conclusions of fact by the court are not sufficiently full and specific, the attention of the court should be called to the defect by motion, exceptions or in some other proper method; otherwise it will not be considered on appeal. The findings of fact by the court stand on the same footing, in this respect, as the verdict of a jury. (Railway Company v. Smith, 62 Tex., 252, etc.)
    
      Appeal from Bosque. Tried below before the Hon. J. M. Hall.
    This suit was instituted in a justice court of Bosque county by appellee, Mrs. Sarah E. Fossett, on December 22, 1883, to recover of the appellant the sum of $199 damages, alleged to have been causedby a fire caused by one of appellant’s engines when running on its road through .appellee’s farm. The case was tried in the justice court and judgment was rendered against the railway company for the amount sued for. The railway company appealed to the district court of Bosque •county, the county court having no civil jurisdiction. In August, 1885, the cause was tried by the district judge, without the intervention of a jury, and he rendered a judgment against the railway company for $122.50.
    
      Wm. M. Knight, for appellant.
    
      J. A. Giüett, for appellee.
   Willie, Chief Justice.

The only complaint in this case is that the court did not make its conclusions of fact as fall and specific as it should have done. If the judge did not specify the number and value of each article of property destroyed, and the appellant wished this done, it should have called the matter to the attention of the court below, by motion, exceptions or in some other proper method, and should not have waited until the case reached this court to then make it a ground for reversal.

The findings of fact by the court are certainly entitled to as much consideration as the verdict of a jury, and it is well settled that a similar objection to a verdict comes too late when urged for the first time in this court. Railway Company v. Smith, 62 Tex., 252; Belo v. Wren, 63 Tex., 727; Moehring v. Hall, 66 Tex., 240. Had the matter been called to the attention of the district judge, he would doubtless have made separate findings, which the appellant claims he should have made. As there is no objection made to the correctness of the judgment itself, other errors complained of are not such as we can take notice of in the state of the record. The judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.

[Opinion delivered May 8, 1886.]