Court Opinion

ID: 9640849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:16:59.914308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.290598
License: Public Domain

*300OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Academia complains on motion for rehearing that this Court erred in its presumption that the trial court applied Illinois law to the tort causes of action. In support of this complaint, Academia also moves for leave to file a supplemental transcript showing the trial court’s order that Texas law be applied to the tort causes of action. The Bank admits in its response that the trial court found Texas law applicable to the tort actions. However, our presumption was by no means dispositive of the appeal or of our application of Illinois law to the Bank’s no evidence points. Whether the trial court applied the correct law or not, the Bank’s no evidence points correctly argued the applicability of Illinois law to the tort causes of action, relied upon Illinois cases and complained of Academia’s failure to establish the various causes of action under Illinois law.
Academia now complains for the first time that the Bank did not raise a point of error specifically attacking the trial court’s decision to apply Texas law to the tort causes of action. However, we will indulge a liberal construction of the briefing rules in favor of the sufficiency of the brief, and give effect thereto if we, from an examination of the statement under each point, can determine with some degree of certainty the nature of the complaint raised by the point. Rio Delta Land Co. v. Johnson, 566 S.W.2d 710, 713 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1978, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Tex. R.App.P. 74. The Bank clearly did raise its complaint that Illinois law, rather than Texas law, applied to the tort causes of action by its extensive arguments concerning the applicability of Illinois law and the application of Illinois law and cases to the present tort causes of action. [Even Academia determined the nature of the Bank’s complaint, as its own appellate brief joined issue on the Bank’s choice of law argument and cited Illinois law in response to the Bank’s challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the tort causes of action.]
In addition, where the error specifically addressed in appellant’s brief is so inextricably entwined with another error that one cannot be mentioned without automatically directing attention to the other, the brief sufficiently directs the court’s attention to both. Consolidated Engineering Co. v. Southern Steel Co., 699 S.W.2d 188, 192 (Tex.1985). In the present case, the complaints raised in the Bank’s brief that there was no evidence to support the tort causes of action under Illinois law were inextricably entwined with its complaint that the tort causes of action were subject to Illinois law rather than Texas law.
Although Academia has for the first time brought to this Court’s attention a trial court ruling which was not part of the record at the time of our October 31, 1990 opinion, such ruling would not affect our decision that Illinois law was applicable in determining the Bank’s points of error. Therefore, we overrule Academia’s motion for rehearing and deny leave to file the supplemental transcript.
KEYS, J., not participating.