Court Opinion

ID: 9830155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:56:13.777392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:14.515732
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing.
As suggested by this court in its original opinion, appellee has filed a further remit-titur, and we have entered an order reforming the judgment in conformity therewith and affirming the judgment as so reformed.
The remittitur was filed without prejudice to appellee’s motion for rehearing which is now before us for consideration. Rules 439 and 440, R.C.P., relate to remit-titurs in the Courts of Civil Appeals. Rule 439 provides that “it shall be lawful for the party in whose favor such excess of damages has been rendered to make such remittitur in the Court of Civil Appeals in the same manner as such release is required to be made in the district or county court.” Rule 328, relating to procedure in the district and county courts, provides that: “New trials may be granted when the damages are manifestly too small or too large, provided that whenever the court shall direct a remittitur in any action, and the same is made, and the party for whose benefit it is made shall appeal in said action, then the party remitting shall not be barred from contending in the appellate court that said remittitur should not have been required either in whole or in part, and if the appellate court sustains such contention it shall render such judgment as the trial court should have rendered without respect to said remittitur.”
We have concluded that the filing of the remittitur did not operate as a waiv*760er of appellee’s motion for rehearing. Ap-pellee does not by assignment contend that he is entitled to a new trial, in order that he might have a jury determination of the exact ratio of cotton seed to lint cotton of such field cotton as would have been raised by appellee had the seed purchased by him been sound. On the contrary, ap-pellee’s assignments assert that we erred in not accepting the jury’s answer to special issue No. 12, as corrected. The assignments presenting this contention are overruled. We adhere to our holdings on the point expressed in our original opinion and further discussion is deemed unnecessary. Appellee’s motion for rehearing is overruled.
Appellants have likewise filed a motion for rehearing. In connection therewith it is necessary to mention but one matter.
In their original brief filed herein appellants stated: “The only testimony in the record bearing upon the ratio between the amount of lint cotton and the amount of cotton seed in a bale of cotton was the' testimony of Mr. Root that Del Fos cot-’ ton seed will produce between 800 and 1,000 pounds of seed to 500 pounds of lint cotton.” This statement from the brief, as well as the following statement in the original opinion, is supported by the record, viz: “The undisputed evidence shows that field cotton (referred to as seed cotton in the pleadings) contains 800 to 1,000 pounds of cotton seed to each 500 pounds of lint cotton.”
Appellants, however, say that they have a right to a jury finding upon this ratio. The most favorable finding under the evidence from appellants’ standpoint would be the ratio of 8 to 5, and that is the ratio upon which the judgment as reformed is based. It is difficult to perceive wherein appellants are injured. As above pointed out, appellee, who might have secured a jury finding of 9 to 5, or 10 to 5, under the evidence, is not raising this particular point in his motion for rehearing. It is the purpose of the rules relating to remittiturs to prevent expensive and time-, consuming retrials of causes where the only errors appearing relate to the amount of an award which can be rendered harmless by a reduction of such amount. We believe this is a proper case for the ap.-i plication of the rules relating to remittitur.
Appellants’ motion for rehearing is overruled.