Court Opinion

ID: 9827479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:35:27.871772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:32.002519
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee has filed a motion for rehearing herein, in which it, for the first time, calls at*197tention to the fact that appellant neglected to include a copy of his assignments of error in his typewritten brief. The case was tried to a jury. Appellant, as shown by the transcript, after an adverse verdict and judgment, filed a motion for new trial, the several paragraphs of which are ample to raise all the issues presented by appellant in its brief as grounds for reversal. Said brief, upon which the case was submitted to this court, contained a list of the propositions, seven in number, upon which he based his claim of prejudicial error requiring a reversal of the judgment. Following said list of propositions said brief contained a statement of the record, together with authorities and argument addressed to each of the same, respectively. Appellee in its brief replied to said several propositions with seven counter propositions, each of which referred specifically to one or more of the propositions so listed by appellant and controverted the same. Said counter propositions were each duly briefed by appellee. The ease was submitted on oral argument, in addition to said briefs of the respective parties. This court considered the case fully and handed down an opinion therein, without discovering that no assignments of error as such were copied in appellant’s brief. Appellee in its motion for rehearing insists that this court shall set aside its judgment of reversal, and affirm the judgment of the trial court because of appellant’s failure to copy his assignments in his brief. Appellant, in reply to appellee’s motion, alleged that his failure to attach a copy of his assignments to his brief was a mere oversight, that appellee had not objected to such failure at or prior to the submission of the case, and aslred permission to now attach said assignments to his brief. Said request was granted and said assignments were so attached.
Rule 32 for the government of Courts of Civil Appeals directs that the brief (for appellant) shall contain verbatim copies of such assignments of error filed in the trial court and reproduced in the transcript as are relied on in the appeal, and that such assignments shall be set out in the back of such brief. It is now well settled by the authorities that it is sufficient if the brief contains a substantial copy of each assignment of error relied on, as the same appears in the transcript. Appellee, in support of its insistence, cites and relies on the case of Clonts v. Johnson, 116 Tex. 489, 294 S. W. 844, 846. That case holds that the authority of the Court of Civil Appeals to revise the action of the lower court is limited to those questions (not fundamental) duly assigned as error, and that, when appellant wholly fails to copy any assignments of error in his brief, the Court of Civil Appeals should confine its consideration of the case to fundamental error, if any, apparent on the face of the record. Accepting such declaration as the law applicable in this case, we will inquire whether appellant has wholly failed to copy any of his assignments of error in his brief.
The second and third propositions contained in appellant’s brief are as follows:
“(2) The trial court erred in instructing the jury to return a verdict against the appellant personally for one-half of the principal, interest, and attorney’s fees upon the notes sued upon, to wit, the sum of $11,465.02.
“(3) The court erred in directing the jury to return a verdict against the appellant for the attorney’s fees upon one-half of the principal and interest of the notes sued upon, there being no conclusive evidence that he owed any attorney’s fees, or that he had assumed one-half of the indebtedness mentioned in the deed.”
These so-called propositions are substantial and almost literal copies of the second and third paragraphs of appellant’s motion for new trial, which motion, since he filed no separate assignments, constitutes in law his assignments of error on appeal. The fourth proposition contained in appellant’s brief is as follows:
“(4) There was sufficient evidence- to submit to the jury the issue as to whether or riot the appellant assumed the payment of one-half of the indebtedness mentioned in the deed from A. R. Tippett and wife to appellant, and the trial court committed error in not submitting to the jury this issue, notwithstanding the court excluded the evidence of O. L. Albritton upon that issue. There was sufficient evidence requiring the submission of that issue to the jury.”
The respective offices of assignments of error and propositions are stated in Clonts v. Johnson, supra, as follows:
“There is a substantial difference between an assignment of error and a proposition submitted thereunder. The one complains of some action of the court, and the other merely sets forth the reasons why such action is erroneous.”
Measured by this declaration of the ¿aw, we find that appellant’s second proposition, though called a proposition, is in fact an assignment of error, pure and simple, and that his so-called third proposition is also a sufficient assignment of error, notwithstanding it not only complains of the action of the court in giving a peremptory instruction, but also states a reason why such action was erroneous. Green v. Hall (Tex. Com. App.) 228 S. W. 183, 184, par. 1, and authorities there cited.
Appellant’s fourth proposition is pertinent and appropriate as a proposition under said second and third propositions, considered as the respective assignments of error, of which they are for ail practical purposes literal copies. The giving of the peremptory charge so complained of was one of the grounds upon which the judgment of the trial *198court in this case was reversed and the cause remanded.
Appellee does not claim that it has suffered any injury from appellant’s oversight. The court was neither inconvenienced nor delayed thereby in its consideration and determination of the issues involved herein. We assume appellee’s counsel did not discover such omission when they prepared their reply brief, nor when they argued the case before this court, or they would have made timely objection on that ground. Had appellant in his brief stated that his second and third assignments of error were adopted as propositions, and then copied them in his brief, both the letter and the spirit of the rule would have been substantially complied with. We think, as to said two assignments, ■ the spirit of the rule was complied with. Since no actual injury is claimed in this case, we think the holding of Presiding Judge Harvey of Section A of the Commission of Appeals in the case of State v. Scranton Independent County Line School District, 285 S. W. 601, 602, 603, is applicable. We quote from his opinion therein as follows:
“Rules of procedure are authorized by the above section of the Constitution for the government of courts and ‘to expedite the dispatch of business therein,’ but not to defeat justice. Therefore, if a court finds that sufficient excuse exists for the nonobservance of any rule of court by a party to the suit, and that a disregard of such rule will not result in legal injury to the opposing party, but will subserve the ends of justice, the court, in the exercise of sound judicial discretion, may disregard the rule.”
Appellant has been permitted to complete his briefs by attaching thereto a copy of his motion for new trial as his assignments of error on this appeal, so that the matter may be fully and fairly presented to the Supreme Court, should appellee seek to have our holding herein reviewed on application for writ of error.
Our holding on the issue raised by the propositions above discussed controls the disposition of this appeal, and appellee’s motion for rehearing is overruled.