Court Opinion

ID: 9828804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:45:06.543978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:53.308711
License: Public Domain

On potion for Rehearing.
Appellee urges that at least we should have on original hearing reformed the judgment of the trial court, and affirmed it with a foreclosure of a lien for the value of 37 days’ labor. The affidavit filed by appellee is not in the statement of facts approved and signed by the trial judge, but is on the next page after the. certificate. Hence ,we do not feel that we can consider the affidavit as a part of the statement of facts, and therefore cannot give it any effect in supporting an affirmance for a less amount than the judgment awarded. '
The motion for rehearing by appellee is overruled.
Appellants call our attention to the fact that an appeal bond was filed on October 24, 1921, and the appellant Bell Oil. & Refining Company signed this bond by A. C. Bell, to-, gether with G. R. Treadwell and T. N. Mc-Neill; that on the same day Bell, Treadwell, and McNeill filed a supersedeas bond; hence that the Bell Oil & Refining Company did appeal. Therefore we set aside that part of our judgment affirming .the judgment as to the Bell Oil & Refining Company, and here reverse the judgment and remand the cause as to all parties defendant.
Appellee’s Motion for Leave to File a Second Motion for Rehearing.
[3] Appellee’s motion for rehearing was overruled February 3, 1923. On February 26 thereafter he filed a motion for leave to file a second motion for rehearing. In his motion for rehearing he urges especially that we erred in reversing and remanding that part of the judgment against the Bell Oil & Refining Company, and that we should have at least affirmed the judgment against that company, alleged to be a joint-stock association, and fixed the laborer’s lien against the lease and personal property described in the affidavit filed for the value of the labor performed within 37 days prior to the filing of the lien. He also asserts that in the approval of the statement of facts the trial judge especially included in his approval the “attached certified copy of the mechanic’s lien.” While the instrument following the judge’s signature is not an affidavit for a mechanic’s lien, but an affidavit for a laborer’s lien, probably the affidavit and account should properly be considered as a part of the statement of facts, although it follows the signature of the trial judge. The account is for 407 days’ labor from December 23, 1919, to February 2, 1921. The affidavit is dated February 16th and filed on the 17th, 1921. If the affidavit complies with the statutes relating to affidavits and the fixing of liens,, which appellant asserts that it does not, and if we were justified in affirming the judgment against the Bell Oil & Refining Company for the debt, we would not be authorized to fix the lien, in any event, for the value of the services performed within 37 days prior to the filing of the lien. The *562court found that plaintiff worked until “February 1, 1920”; that be began work for defendants on December 23, 1919, and that be worked for the agreed price of $10 a day until September 23, 1920; that from September 23, 1920, to December 18, 1920, plaintiff was “watching” the lease, and bis services were reasonably worth $5 a day; that after “December 18, 1920, to February 1, 1920” plaintiff did other work in connection with said watching, and’ that for said last-named period bis services were of the reasonable value of $2 a day. If we should conclude that the last-named date should be February 1, 1921, instead of 1920, then for the 22 or 21 days (for article 5622, supra, says the laborer seeking a lien must file his contract or itemized account within 30 days) he would be entitled to $44 or $42 for said time.
[4] It is a question whether merely “watching a lease,” while plaintiff was doing work for other people, as the court found and the evidence shows plaintiff was doing from September 23, or at least from December 18, 1920, was “labor” as meant by the articles of the statute giving liens to laborers upon lands, leases, or personal property thereon, upon which they have worked.'
“The word ‘labor’ in legal parlance has a well-defined, understood, and accepted meaning. It implies continued exertion of the more ■onerous and inferior kind usually and chiefly consisting in the protracted exertion of muscular force. * * * In legal significance labor implies toil; exertion producing weariness; manual exertion of a toilsome nature.” Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio State Rep. 387. Moore v. American Industrial Co., 138 N. C. 304, 50 S. E. 687.
See 16 R. C. L. § 2, pp. 412, 413, 24 Cyc. p. 808, and 2.Bouvier’s Daw Dictionary, 1811, for further definitions of the word in the various relations in which it may be used. Humphrey’s Texas Mechanic’s Dien Law defines the word as follows: “Labor as used in the statute means manual work” — referring to those articles of the statutes dealing with laborers’ liens. See Jones on Liens, vol. 2, § 629, p. 864. We are of opinion that services performed by appellee from September 23, or at least from December 18, 1920, were not labor expended on the lease so as to entitle him to a lien thereon under article 5639a, supra.
[5] The above discussion brings us to the question of whether, even though there were no specific assignments of error attacking th'e judgment against the Bell Oil & Refining Company which we would be required to sustain, we ought to affirm the judgment against the Bell Oil & Refining Company, or reverse the judgment and remand the .cause as to all parties appellant. Where the rights of one party appellant are dependent upon those of another, the appellate court will treat the judgment appealed from as an entirety, and, where a reversal is required as to one party, it will reverse the judgment as a whole. Ferguson v. Dickinson (Tex. Civ. App.) 138 S. W. 221; Hamilton v. Prescott, 73 Tex. 565, 11 S. W. 548.
We were of the opinion on the consideration of the appellants’ motion for rehearing, and are of the opinion now, that the rights of the respective parties appellant are so interwoven and dependent on each other that justice requires a reversal as to both parties;
Since we do not find that the tendered second motion for rehearing presents any new questions of law, and since we believe that our action heretofore in reversing and remanding the cause as to both appellants was justified, the motion for leave to file a second motion for rehearing is overruled.