Court Opinion

ID: 9830666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:22:13.823218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:25.369577
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[2] Plaintiff in error files a motion for rehearing, alleging that we were in error in *757dismissing the appeal for want of jurisdiction. He says that the date of the judgment as given in the record is an error. That October 18, 1917, given in the record as the date of tho judgment, was in fact the date of the trial. That judgment was not entered until October 31st. He admits:
“There is nothing in the record to show when that judgment was rendered, except at the head thereof when it came on to be tried.”
He urges that, as the transcript does show that the plaintiff below, plaintiff in error here, filed his motion for judgment on December 28, 1917, and that interveners filed their motion for judgment on December S, and as the record further shows that plaintiff filed his motion for new trial on December 28, and that the court’s judgment and order overruling plaintiff’s motion for judgment appears of date December 31, this court must know that the date of the judgment as it appears in the record is an error. The contention of plaintiff in error that the record tends to show that the date of judgment is erroneous, and that -this court ought to entertain jurisdiction of the appeal, would come with more force in his petition for writ of error, filed December 16, 1918, did it not recite that the judgment from which the writ of error was prosecuted was rendered October IS, 1917. Moreover, defendants jn error, in their brief, object to the consideration of the appeal, for lack of jurisdiction, and state that the judgment was rendered on October 18, 1917, and that the petition for writ of error and the writ of error bond were filed December 16, 1918, more than 12 months later. If the plaintiff in error desired to correct the record so as to make it show what is claimed to be the true date of the judgment, he should have filed his motion to that end in the trial court.
[3, 4] In the state of the record and in face of the objection by the defendants in error urged, we do not feel justified, merely upon an unverified motion for rehearing, to grant a rehearing and entertain jurisdiction. While under article 1593, V. S. Civ. Stats., Courts of Civil Appeals have. power, upon affidavit or otherwise as by the courts may be thought proper, to ascertain such.matters of fact as may be necessary to the proper exercise of their jurisdiction, yet it seems that this power is restricted to matters not appearing of record, and does not admit'of facts contradicting the record. Ennis Mercantile Co. v. Wathen, 93 Tex. 622, 57 S. W. 946; Gibson v. Sewing Mach. Co., 145 S. W. 633; Seiter v. Marschall, 105 Tex. 205, 147 S. W. 226; Dixon v. Lynn (Sup.) 154 S. W. 656. No request is made by plaintiff in error that this court hear evidence, nor is. any evidence by affidavit, sworn plea, or sworn testimony tendered. Under such circumstances, we conclude that the motion for rehearing should be overruled; and it is so ordered. Davis v. McGehee, 24 Tex. 210, cited in Smith v. Buffalo Oil Co., 99 Tex. 77, 87 S. W. 660, and in W. U. Tel Co. v. O'Keefe, 87 Tex. 423, 28 S. W. 945.