Court Opinion

ID: 9831271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:58:49.121634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:33.356033
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Plaintiff in error’s motion for an extension of time within which to file the record in this cause was granted, over defendant in error’s protest, on December 9, 1931, and no motion for rehearing was filed thereon by defendant in error.
Subsequently, in due course, the cause was submitted, and the judgment was reversed and the cause remanded on May 25, 1932.
Defendant in error in its motion for rehearing now also moves that the order of December 9 be set aside, the record stricken, and the judgment affirmed on certificate, or, in the alternative, on the merits. These motions will be overruled.
For the first few months following the effective date of the Act of 42d Legislature (Gen. Laws 1931, ch. 66, § 1, p. 100), amending article 1839 (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 1839), and drastically curtailing the time for filing records in Courts of Civil Appeals in cases of appeal and writ of error, this court sought to make liberal allowance to parties in their efforts in good faith to comply with the law. This court purposely refrained from strictly construing, applying or enforcing the new law, that litigants might become familiar with the new provisions and adjust their mode of practice thereto.
It was in pursuance of that policy that leave was granted appellant to file the record tardily presented in this case. Nor had we at that time carefully analyzed the amended act, or taken notice of the provision requiring motions for extension of time to be filed in this court before the expiration of the stipulated 60-day period.
But beginning with the new year this court interpreted, and began enforcing, the amended act, as exemplified in Reasonover v. Reasonover, 46 S.W.(2d) 382, in which writ of error was but recently denied. That construction has also been adopted by other Courts of Civil Appeals [Walker v. Lyles, 45 S.W.(2d) 315; Reed v. Great American Indemnity Co., 47 S.W.(2d) 860; Reese v. Owens, 48 S.W.(2d) 697] although denied by a divided Court in C. S. Hamilton Motor Co. v. Muckleroy (Tex. Civ. App.) 46 S.W.(2d) 451.
We conclude, in view of the course the matter has taken, that it is now too late, if we were so disposed, to reopen the question and strike the record.