Court Opinion

ID: 9832552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:59:39.188883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:47.890858
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[3] On original hearing we said that -the trial in the court below appeared to have been upon the general understanding of counsel for all parties that the shipments in controversy went north via Terral, Okl., and that no question was raised to the contrary until plaintiffs filed a motion for a new trial. Upon further consideration, we have reached the conclusion that plaintiffs should not be held bound by such apparent understanding, since the burden was upon the defendant to show that the shipments were controlled by note contained in item No. 176 of the tariff regulations set out in our original opinion, and which provision was an exception to the general tariff regulations contained in item No. 175. Plaintiffs were not required to introduce any evidence to overcome the defense based upon the exception relied on and pleaded by the defendant, until proof was first made by the defendant which amounted to a showing prima facie that the shipments came within the operation of the exception pleaded.
[4] We are of the opinion further that we were in error in holding, in effect, that the *182trial court was authorized to take judicial cognizance of the fact that the town of Ter-ral, Okl., was on defendant’s railway, near the border of the states of Oklahoma and Texas. As pointed out in our opinion, many authorities in other jurisdictions support that conclusion; but in their motion for rehearing appellants have cited authorities in this state which are of a contrary effect. In Tale v. Ward, 30 Tex. 18, our Supreme Court said:
‘‘This court has held that it will not take judicial notice of the division of other.states into towns, cities, etc., and that knowledge of the fact that any place is within a different state of the Union must be derived from the allegations of the parties or the evidence contained in the record. Andrews v. Hoxie, 5 Tex. 185; 4 Tex. 120.”
In that case it was held that the court could not take judicial knowledge of the fact that the city of New Orleans was in the state of Louisiana. We have found no decision in this state overruling those decisions; nor has the appellee filed any reply to appellants’ motion for rehearing to show that the rule of the decisions in this state is now contrary to the announcement made in those decisions.
Accordingly, the former judgment of this court affirming the judgment of the trial court is set aside, and appellants’ assignment of error presenting the contention that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the defense referred to above is sustained, and the judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the cause is remanded for another trial.