Court Opinion

ID: 9828420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:21:18.074405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:47.903677
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Eehearing.
At a former day of the present term of this court we made and entered an order affirming the judgment of the trial court in this cause and wrote a short opinion showing our reasons for affirming the judgment. As our opinion will show, we affirmed the judgment of the trial court because appellants failed to file in the trial court any formal assignment or assignments of error, or any motion for a new trial that might take the place of formal assignments of error, and because, as we held, there was no fundamental error apparent upon the face of the record. Thereafter, in due time, counsel for appellants filed in this court a lengthy motion for rehearing, in which he earnestly insists 'that this court was in error in its original opinion in holding that there was no motion for a new trial filed in the trial court by appellants that might take the place of formal assignments of error, and also that this court was in error in holding that there was no fundamental error in the trial court’s judgment apparent upon the face of the record.
We have carefully considered appellants’ motion for rehearing as to both grounds, and have again concluded that appellants filed no motion for a new trial in the trial court that might be considered as assignments of error, and that no character of assignments of error was filed in the trial court, and that there is no fundamental error apparent upon the face of the record. We are forced to the conclusion that what counsel for appellant now calls his motion for a new trial was nothing more than his motion to the trial court to reform the judgment that the trial court had entered in favor of appellees and to enter judgment in favor of appellants, as suggested in the motion to reform. The instrument that counsel for appellants now calls a motion for a new trial was styled or designated by him in the lower court as a “motion to reform the judgment,” and it was so treated and styled and designated in the judgment of the trial court overruling that •motion. It is true that counsel for appellants duly excepted to the action of the trial court in declining and refusing to reform the judgment as requested by counsel for appellants, but, as stated in our original opinion, no assignment of error of any character was filed challenging the action of the trial court m refusing to reform the judgment or to set aside the judgment that he had rendered in favor of appellees. No useful purpose would be served by going into details in this matter, for unless a mere motion to reform a judgment of the trial court or to enter a certain judgment in favor of a party litigant, if refused, can constitute or take the place of an “assignment of error,” as that tdrm is well understood in our practice, then appellants brought their record to this court without any assignments of error challenging any action of the trial court.
As to appellants’ contention that fundamental error in the trial court’s judgment is apparent upon the face of th'e record in this case, we have only to say that, in order to determine whether or not that contention is true, it would be necessary to search the statement of facts in this case, and where that is true fundamental error is not apparent upon the face of the record.
We commend counsel for appellants for the energy and zeal that he has put forth in behalf of his client in the preparation of his motion for a rehearing in this cause.' But, being convinced as we are that our original opinion affirming the judgment was the only course open to this court, we must overrule the motion for rehearing, and that is accordingly done.