Court Opinion

ID: 9674989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:38:35.83877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.584377
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

Counsel for Appellee has filed a Motion for Rehearing suggesting in strong (bordering on contumacious) language, error in the Court’s Opinion. He begins by saying:
Anyone with reasonable command of the English language must conclude that the wording of the subject letter could not possibly have been clearer.
*467He then quotes the language from his July 30, 1991 letter that “you are put on notice that I am amending and supplementing Mov-ant’s earlier response to your First Request for Documents....” We do agree that the language was clear. It said that counsel was supplementing his earlier response, presumably in accordance with the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. That means, as Rule 168 requires that:
A true copy of the interrogatories and the written answers or objections, together with proof of service thereof as provided in Rule 21a, shall be filed promptly in the clerk’s office by the party making them,
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The answers shall be signed and verified by the person making them and the provisions of Rule 14 shall not apply.
If it was counsel’s intention to amend and supplement his earlier response on some basis other than that provided for in the Rules of Civil Procedure, we are confident he would have so stated such intention in clear and concise language. He did not. Certainly opposing counsel and the trial court should have been able to expect that he would do as he had said he was doing, i.e. follow the applicable rules and send his sworn amendment to the clerk. He did not and may not now complain that this Court is requiring him to comply with the “reasonable command of the English language” as found in those rules.
Counsel’s Motion concludes by stating:
This Court should be ashamed of itself for putting the Appellee through this task [another trial] for no other reason than hyper-technicality and flawed conclusions.
Unfortunately, the reason Appellee faces another trial is because her counsel, who claims to have fully complied with the rules of procedure and contends he gave full notice to opposing counsel, never sought to make a showing of “good cause” in the trial court for failure to comply with the applicable rules. If his notice was adequate, as he now claims, the trial court undoubtedly would have found good cause and the error of improper supplementation would have been avoided. He did not and now as a result, his client faces a new trial. This is a ease where counsel attempts to excuse his own inept performance by attacking the Court.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.