Court Opinion

ID: 9827809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:52:23.059431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:37.207094
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
As may be seen by reference to our original opinion in this case, appellant declared upon a judgment against I). L. Power, deceased, and sought to establish and foreclose a judgment lien on certain lands alleged to have been acquired by a due abstracting and recording of the judgment, etc. Appellant also pleaded in the alternative that, if for any reason the alleged judgment lien should be held to be defective and unenforceable, that then, and in that event, he have judgment against the appellee administrator and the other parties to the suit establishing his judgment claim as a valid indebtedness against the estate of the said D. L. Power to be paid in due course of .administration.
We affirmed the judgment of the trial court refusing to establish and enforce the alleged judgment lien on the ground that the judgment had not been properly abstracted, and to this conclusion we yet adhere. We also affirmed the decree of the trial court denying appellant’s alternative prayer on the ground that the evidence failed to show that article 3522, Rev. Statutes of 1925, had been complied with by proof that appellant had instituted suit to establish his claim within 90 days after its rejection by the administrator.
In appellant’s motion for. rehearing it is sought to supply evidence of the fact that his suit was in truth instituted against the administrator for the purpose of establishing the validity of his judgment and having it paid in due course of administration in due time by tendering a certified copy of what purports to be his original petition, which the clerk of the district court certifies was filed in cause No. 5513 in the district court of Wise county on the 19th day of November, 1925, less than 90 days from the date upon which the administrator rejected the claim. Our attention is also called to a bill of costs in the case of W. H. Askey v. Mrs. Alice Power et al., No. 5513, as certified by the district court clerk and found in the original transcript in this case. We copy the following entries from the .bill relied upon in support of the motion, to wit: •
1925
Nov. 19. Filing and docketing.$ .35
Ñov. 19. Appearance .15
Nov. 19. Citation & 10 copies. 5.75
Nov. 19. 4 copies,plaintiffs petition @ $2.60.. 10.40
Nov. 19. 6 Certs to petition. 3.00
Dec. 1. Filing answer.15
1926
May 12. Citation & Copy (wise). 1.25
May 12. Recording return.50
May 14. Recording return.50
May 25. 1 Subpoena and 3 names.70
July 3. Continued .20
Oct. 2. Filing 2nd amended original petition .15
Nov. 5. 1 Citation and 4 copies (wise).2.75
Nov. 17. Recording return .50
Nov. 20. Plea in abatement.15
The question for our determination is whether in the state of the record the district court erred in rendering judgment denying, among other things, the validity and establishment of the original judgment against D. L. Power as a claim against his estate.
 It is to be noted that neither in a bill of exception nor in appellant’s motion for a new trial is any evidence referred to as showing the date of the original institution of appellant’s suit. The purported copy of the original petition accompanying the motion for rehearing was not brought upi by a writ of certiorari to correct the record, but was presented to us in the form of a loose attachment to appellant’s motion for rehearing, not separately filed, nor does it appear that the petition, bill of costs, or any other circumstance or evidence was offered or called to the trial court’s attention prior to or. after his rendition of the judgment that would show or tend to show that appellant had complied with article 3522, Rev. Statutes of 1925. Under such circumstances, we find it difficult ■to say that there was error in rendering judgment as he did in the respect under consideration. As pointed out in our original opinion, article 3522 is mandatory in its terms, and the burden was upon appellant not only to allege the facts which would entitle him to the establishment of his judgment against the estate of D. L. Power, but it was also incumbent upon him to support such allegations with the necessary amount of proof, and, in the light of our decisions relating to the subject, we find ourselves unable to say that he has done so. In the case of Houston & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Parker, 104 Tex. 162, 135 *334S. W. 369, our Supreme Court, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Ramsey, said: “ ‘After a cause is once submitted upon a transcript supposed to be correct, as the parties have made no objection to it, and we have decided it upon such transcript, we cannot undertake to re-examine such cause because the counsel for either party discovers a defect in the transcript, which, if supplied, might possibly lead us to a different conclusion. A mistake in the pleadings or facts of a single word might influence the decision. Thus discovered and remedied, a new opinion framed to suit the altered record might itself be set aside upon the discovery of some other error; and so on to numberless changes in the transcript and the decisions upon it. This practice cannot, of course, be allowed, and to prevent it the right to a certiorari must be limited to some point in the proceedings, which must not extend beyond the date of the submission of the cause to the court for decision. Indeed, this has been the rule of this court announced in frequent opinions of our predecessors, which, having been orally delivered, may not have come to the knowledge of the profession generally.’ ”
Rule 22 for the Courts of Civil Appeals, among other things, expressly declares: “All parties will be expected, before submission, to see that the transcript of the record is properly prepared, and the mere failure to observe omissions or inaccuracies therein will not be admitted, after submission, as a reason for correcting the record or obtaining a rehearing.”
In the case of Camden Fire Ins. Ass’n v. Hill, 264 S. W. 123, 124, it was held by the Amarillo Court of Civil Appeals that, quoting from the headnote: “Under Courts of Civil Appeals rule 22, party cannot have submission of appeal set aside, case reopened, and record corrected.”
We should, perhaps, note that rule 22, as formulated and construed by Judge Ramsey in the opinion to which we have referred, was discussed by Chief Justice Phillips in the,case of Patrick v. Pierce, 107 Tex. 620, 183 S. W. 441, where it was held that appellant in that case after submission should have been permitted to perfect the record by writ of cer-tiorari. But the amendment there permitted was to show jurisdiction in the court and did not go to the merits of the case, while heré ■the question is one that goes to the merits, and no application for a writ of certiorari to correct the record has been made.
On the whole, we conclude that however much we might be inclined to set aside the trial court’s judgment in the respect now complained of, we would not be justified in doing so under the state of the record now presented to us.
The motion for rehearing is, accordingly, overruled.