Court Opinion

ID: 9834420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:34:31.593869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:35.780117
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant and appellee have filed motions for rehearing. Appellant reasserts the proposition that we should have taken as true the allegations of its answer to the effect that it had agreed upon a settlement of the controversy for the sum of $350, and the other terms, as mentioned in the original opinion. We meant to express the view in the original opinion that we could not give effect to this agreement because, while it was still execu-tory, the appellee repudiated it. We have no jurisdiction to decree a cancellation of the judgment, and, if we should hold appellant to ■a liability for $350, 'our judgment at the same time not being res adjudicata as to the cancellation of the judgment, the appellant would be deprived of its money without any consideration or benefit. Appellant evidently did not construe our opinion as entailing such a consequence, and we have therefore deemed it appropriate to say this much in response to appellant’s motion.
Appellee insists that, in order to serve the ends of justice, the case should be remanded and not rendered. This contention has. made it necessary that we look to the evidence, if any, which was offered to show that the stock in the Mesa Production Company which stood upon the books in the name of Mrs. Lyman, was not her separate property. The appellant presented a proposition contending that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the stock was not the separate property of Mrs. Lyman. Since appellant, by its answer as garnishee, alleged that the stock was the separate property ’of Mrs. Lyman, the burden of proof was thereby cast upon appellee to show that it was not. Moffet on Exemptions and Writs, p. 139, and authorities there cited. The only evidence on the question tends to show that the stock was the separate property of Mrs. Lyman. We doubt if appellee was entitled to the benefit of the statutory presumption that property acquired during the marriage relation is community property. Had appellee offered no evidence whatever on the question, we think the rule above stated would have required the court to hold that appellee had not discharged the burden of showing that the garnishee’s answer was untrue. In Hall Music Co. v. Robinson, 7 S.W.(2d) 625, wo held that, where the burden of proof is upon one party to establish a fact and the only evidence on the question are denials of that fact by the adverse party, a jury question is not raised under the general rule that the testimony of interested parties, even when uncontradicted, raise only issues for the jury.
We would appear to have the same situation here. Although the only testimony on the question was that of interested witnesses, yet, since same afforded no support of the fact which appellee had the burden of proving, we would have been compelled, had we reached that question, to sustain the appellant’s assignment as to the insufficiency of the evidence. Being of this view, we do not believe that the ends of justice require a remand of the case. No testimony was excluded on the ground that the controverting answer was unverified, but, on the contrary, it appears that the case was fully developed.
It is therefore our opinion that the motions of appellant and appellee should be overruled, and it is accordingly so ordered.