Court Opinion

ID: 9830453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:13:30.187985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:22.759124
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The correctness of the following quotation from our original opinion is questioned by appellant in his motion for new trial: “We are not asked to review the weight of the evidence, and the questions presented are solely of law.”
The motion points out certain arguments in appellant’s brief which, it is suggested, we “must have entirely overlooked.” In stating that we were not asked to review the weight of the evidence, it is manifest that we meant that the question of the weight of the evidence was not raised or involved in the appeal.
 The Courts of Civil Appeals are given jurisdiction to set aside a judgment of the trial court on the facts, and these courts have exercised this jurisdiction, when, in their judgment the evidence, though sufficient as a matter of law to sustain the judgment, so manifestly preponderated against it as to require a new trial in the interest of justice. Jurisdiction in this regard is wholly distinct from that jurisdiction which both the Courts of Civil Appeals and the Supreme Court have to set aside a judgment where as a matter of law the evidence is not sufficient to support it. In order to invoke the jurisdiction upon either of these grounds, it is essential to assign error.
An assignment of error which attacks the trial court’s judgment because it is against the law and the evidence, or is not supported by the evidence, merely invokes the jurisdiction of the appellate court upon the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of law to sustain the judgment; and the only issue thus presented is whether there is evidence of any probative force which will support the judgment. Such assignment does not invoke the jurisdiction of the Court of Civil Appeals to weigh the evidence from the viewpoint of its preponderating effept as distinguished from its probative force as a matter of law. *147Marks v. Sambrano (Tex. Civ. App.) 170.S. W. 546.
Appellant’s assignments of error (Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6) do not raise the issue of the preponderance or weight of the.evidence, but at most question the correctness of the court’s judgment as having support in the evidence. This is the basis for our above-quoted statement that we were not asked to review the weight of the evidence, and that the questions presented are solely of law.
We might add in this connection that none of the assignments of error are, under Courts of Civil Appeals Rule No. 32, entitled to consideration, for the reason that they are nowhere copied in appellant’s brief. See Wright v. Maddox (Tex. Civ. App.) 286 S. W. 607.
The motion is overruled.