Court Opinion

ID: 9827774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:50:41.822038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:36.526070
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The employés of the railway company, E. D. Worley and Charles M. Willard, have brought to this court a certificate that the names of the sureties on their appeal bond, one of whom is counsel for the receiver arid railway company, had been omitted through error in not copying the names of the sureties in making up the transcript for the appeal to this court.
Under the provisions of article 2097, Revised Statutes, a cost bond on appeal must have “two or more good and sufficient sureties,” and the only exception to that requirement is where a surety company makes the bond. No document, although it may comply with the requirements of the statute in every other respect, is an appeal bond in the absence of the sureties. Such a paper would have no effect whatever, and no court has ever held that, where there is no bond, that the opposite party can waive the filing of a bond. The filing of a bond is jurisdictional, and the parties to a suit cannot give jurisdiction to a court by agreement. From the case of Hooper v. Brinson, 10 Tex. 296, to the present time, it has been held that *891two sureties are required to give tibie appellate court jurisdiction. Railway v. Mercantile Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 181 S. W. 270.
Under tide provisions of article 2104, Rev. Stats., an appeal bond that is defective may be amended by filing a new bond “on sucb terms as tbe court may prescribe.” If the appeal bond of the appellants named was executed with two sureties, as required by statute, and such bond was not copied into the record of appeal, appellants should have applied to this court for a writ of certiorari to perfect the record, but no such application was made. In a motion for a rehearing, this court is not asked to have the original bond certified to this court filed and considered herein, but without leave of. the court a new bond is tendered of date after the rendering of the opinion of this court. If it be true- that there were two sureties on the original bond, we do not understand that the bond was defective and article 2104, in regard to defective bonds, would have no application. No request has been made to file a certified copy of the original bond in this court. The new bond will not be filed.
Giving appellants Worley and Willard the benefit not of a doubt,, for wé have none as to the bond which has never been and doubtless never will be filed in this court, we might refuse to consider their appeal in this case because it is evident that their appeal has not been made in good faith. It is ably contended by the receiver and railway company that neither of their employes were guilty of negligence, and, if so, those appellants ought not to be held liable to the others. In the case of Hogsett v. Northern Tex. Traction Co., 55 Tex. Civ. App. 72, 118 S. W. 807, the facts are not given, but it appears that the employs who was made a party by the defendant was not acting along the line of his employment in charging a passenger with theft, and there is nothing to show that the cause against the employs was not a bona fide one. We conclude that the two defendants in that case were acting in good faith. There is nothing to indicate that counsel for the Traction Company were counsel for the conductor, inspiring and dictating his answer; nothing to show that an appeal bond was filed with counsel for both parties on the bond; nothing to show that parties defendant filed joint briefs; nothing to show that the railway company was paying the fee of the attorney for the employs'and that the parties were acting together in every part of the case. We have seen no case presenting the aspects of the one before this court. There was no controversy between the corporation and its employés in this case. There was in truth and in fact only one defendant in this case.
This court is referred to bill of exceptions No. 1 as showing the objection was urged by Worley and Willard to a refusal of the court to allow them to challenge six jurors. That bill shows that Worley and Willard, neither in person nor by their counsel, made the objection, but it was made by one of the counsel for the receiver and the railway company. Even nominal counsel for Worley and Willard was paid by the railway company or its counsel. Bill of Exceptions gives no reasons for their demand for a panel of 30 men instead of 24. The record fails to show that Worley and Willard ever objected to the refusal of the court to allow them a challenge of 6 men. The six challenges allowed were used by the railway company without objection on the part of Worley and Willard, and no bill of exceptions was taken to that action. Worley and Willard were not made defendants in good faith, but to sub-serve the purposes of the railway company.
The motions for rehearing are overruled.