Court Opinion

ID: 9833858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:06:05.771315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:07.978315
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellees have filed a motion for rehearing in which they have offered to remit $175.28 of the judgment recovered by them in the trial court against appellant, and now pray that the judgment of the trial court be affirmed for the balance remaining after deducting therefrom the remittitur so offered.
As stated in our opinion on original hearing, it appeared from the itemized account attached to plaintiffs’ petition that some of those items accrued prior to June 17, 1930, the date the appellant acquired a one-third interest in the lease and the oil runs therefrom, and, since there was no definite basis for an elimination from the judgment the exact .amount of the items incurred before appellant purchased its one-third interest, the judgment would have to be reversed and the cause remanded; unless parties could agree upon the amount of such excess and file such agreement within fifteen days from the date of our ruling.
In their motion, appellees now say that it has been impossible to get an agreement from appellant’s counsel as to the amount of such excess, but they present to us a statement of items which they are willing to exclude from the account sued on, aggregating $525.56; one-third of which, to wit, $175.28, they are willing to remit. The items which they offer to exclude from their original account include the sum of $117.19, the aggregate of all items included in the account for the month of June, 1930; also certain other items in the account for other months which appear to have accrued prior to June 17, 1930, aggregating $108.37, which, added to the total for June, amounts to $525.56.
It is insisted that the amount to be so excluded from the account upon which the suit was instituted covers every possible expense that accrued prior to appellant’s purchase. And it is insisted that we carefully examine the record to verify the estimates so made, with the further offer to remit to cover any other items that are not included in their present offer.
Appellant has filed no reply to the motion ; in the absence of which we are authorized to accept the appellees’ statement of the facts shown in the record as correct, under rule 31 for the Courts of Civil Appeals. Furthermore, after a careful inspection of the record, we have reached the conclusion that the remittitur tendered by the appellees is *1100sufficient to cover every possible item of expense incurred before appellant purchased its one-third interest.
Accordingly, the remittitur will be approved as sufficient to eliminate from the recovery awarded all possible items of expense shown in the account sued on for which appellant was not liable, and the judgment of the trial court in favor of the appellees will be so reformed as to reduce the recovery in the amount of such tender; and, as thus reformed, the judgment will be affirmed.
 Appellant had the right to complain of the excessive recovery in the respects pointed out, without the necessity of calling the trial court’s attention thereto by motion for a new trial, since it cannot be presumed that the judge who tried the case without a jury would have changed his ruling on that point if a motion for new trial had been filed raising that question. 3 Tex. Jurisprudence, p. 259. Nor have appellees challenged its right so to do. Hence all costs of appeal will be taxed against the appellees; their contention that, by reason of appellant’s failure to' raise the claim of excessiveness by motion for new trial, the cost of appeal should be taxed against it, being overruled. In this connection it is to be noted that the findings of the trial court showed that the judgment rendered was for the exact amount and for the same items shown in the account made the basis of plaintiffs’- suit; and it was equally plaintiffs’ duty to see to it that the judgment did not include items which the account showed on its face not to be properly chargeable to the defendant.