Court Opinion

ID: 9829980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:47:19.742246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:10.550226
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant has filed a forceful and interesting motion for rehearing in this cause. By such motion it is urged, among other things, that the opinion in Hess v. Schaffner (Tex. Civ. App.) 139 S. W. 1024, and not the opinion in the case of Kalteyer v. Mitchell, 102 Tex. 390, 117 S. W. 792, 132 Am. St. Rep. 889, is controlling in this case and requires the judgment of the trial court to be reversed and rendered in favor of the appellant. We do not think that our original opinion is in conflict with the decision in Hess v. Schaff-ner, supra. In that case the erasure of the name of John Dameck was made before the delivery of the note. Such fact, shown to exist, entitled the instrument to be introduced in evidence but for the other objection as to a variance. In the instant ease, had it been admitted or shown by the evidence that the alteration was made before the instrument was delivered to the plaintiff, then the instrument would have been entitled to consideration as evidence and would have been sufficient to make a prima facie case.
The trial court’s finding that plaintiff “failed to prove by sufficient and satisfactory evidence the circumstances attending the change of said written instruments” would, in such case, have had no support in the record and would have been insufficient to support the judgment for defendants. But it was an issue of fact whether the alterations apparent on the face of the instrument were made before or after delivery. The court’s finding that plaintiff had not discharged its burden of explaining the alterations consistently with plaintiff’s right to recover is therefore supported by the record in that plaintiff, having the burden of at least showing that there was no alteration after the instrument was delivered to it, failed to do so.
We think, therefore, that this finding of the court is binding upon us, and the motion for rehearing is accordingly overruled.