Court Opinion

ID: 9833542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:48:35.912912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:04.103780
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[11] The appellant has drawn several inferences from language of the opinion which he misconstrues, and which are altogether unwarranted and uncalled for. For instance, he insists that this court has in effect held that the failure to give personal notice of sale under a mortgage is such an irregularity as makes the sale void. We made no such holding nor is the language quoted from the opinion susceptible of any such construction. It is insisted that the plaintiff’s petition' does not charge fraud, and that we erred in holding that the allegations of the petition with reference to the issue of fraud, if insufficient, could be supplied by reference to the answer. In the first place, there is no proposition in appellant’s brief challenging the sufficiency of the plaintiff's allegations of fraud. We should not therefore have discussed the question. We were misled by the argument in appellant’s brief, wherein the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s allegations to show fraud were assailed. We have the right to assume that counsel will be fair and true to the record in their state-*911merits ana arguments. A reference to the transcript will show that under one or more assignments the insufficiency of the petition in this particular is assailed; but in his brief appellant has abandoned that ground of complaint by failing in any proposition to question the sufficiency of the petition in that respect. Aside from this, we find, by referring to the pleading itself, that both conspiracy ■and fraud are specifically and repeatedly charged in verbis and in effect; but, if there were no specific allegations of fraud, the appellant’s pleadings clearly raise the issue, and the rule announced in'the original opinion is sustained by numerous authorities. Sovereign Camp, W. O. W., v. Hubbard (Tex. Civ. App.) 248 S. W. 732; Sovereign Oamp, W. O. W., v. Cooper (Tex. Civ. App.) 208 S. W. 550; Pope v. Kansas City, M. & O. R. Co. (Tex. Sup.) 207 S. W. 514; Lyon v. Logan, 68 Tex. 521, 5 S. W. 72, 2 Am. St. Rep. 511; Tittle v. Bartholomae (Tex. Civ. App.) 207 S. W. 176; Martinez v. De Barroso (Tex. Civ. App.) 189 S. W. 740; Peoples v. Brockman (Tex. Civ. App.) 153 S. W. 907.
[12] In American National Bank v. Haggerton (Tex. Civ. App.) 250 S. W. 279, the petition failed to allege that the plaintiff had tendered to defendant an abstract showing good and merchantable title. The defendant, however, alleged that this had not been done, and assumed the burden of proof upon that issue. This court said:
“Having presented the issue, and both parties having tried the case upon that theory in the lower court, we are convinced, upon reconsideration, that the judgment should not he reversed upon this ground. The rule is well established in this state, that where the plaintiff’s petition fails to make a necessary averment of fact but the omission is supplied by such an allegation in the answer, even though where a demurrer to the petition upon that ground is overruled, the defect in the petition is unimportant and the appellate court is not justified in reversing the case for that reason,” citing numerous authorities.
[13,14] Moreover, since the promulgation •of rule 62a, defects in pleading are not such a prolific source of reversal as before. There is now no presumption that an error in overruling special exceptions to pleadings is ground for a reversal. The burden is upon the complaining party to show injury. Golden v. Odiorne (Tex. Com. App.) 249 S. W. 822; Trinity & B. V. Ry. Co. v. Geary (Tex. Civ. App.) 169 S. W. 201; Thornton v. Goodman. (Tex. Civ. App.) 185 S. W. 926; Southern Commercial & Savings Bank v. Combs (Tex. Civ. App.) 203 S. W. 1169. Appellant cannot claim substantial injury by reason of the court’s rulings in this case. The trial was before the court. Not only the appellant’s pleading, but the evidence introduced by him, show that the issue of fraud in making the sale was the paramount issue in the case. It was^ fully understood by the court and by both parties to be the controlling issue. Since it was tried upon that ’ theory in the court below, it must stand or fall upon the same issue here.
In the original opinion we stated that the assignment “was not filed and recorded until after the sale.” There is some doubt about the correctness of this (Staftement. Riesenberg first testified that he sold the land at the noon hour. He further testified that he and Minchew started out in the country to see the land about 9 o’clock on the morning of the day of sale, and it was “about 12:30 o’clock when I got back from the land.” He is evidently mistaken in this, because the file mark upon the assignment made by the clerk is dated at 12 o’clock m. The reasonable presumption is that he did not file until after he returned. The file mark on the assignment corroborates his first statement that he sold the land at the noon hour. In any event, according to his testimony, there is not more than 30 minutes between the time when the assignment was lodged with the clerk and the actual sale of the premises. We may safely infer that it had not been recorded at the time of the sale, but the matter is too trifling upon which to base even a quibble. ■ We will correct our statement, however, by saying that the assignment was filed with the clerk a few minutes before the sale.
The other grounds of the motion are without merit, and are disposed of by what we have said in the,original opinion, and the motion is overruled.