Court Opinion

ID: 9832902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:17:05.584976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:55.108204
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The Manns, the Nearens, and the Rio Oil Company have each filed motion for rehearing. Appellant Rio Oil Company says that we have inadvertently erred in our original opinion, in stating that “the Rio Oil Company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Louisiana with Thos. J. Baten and his son Gordon Baten its stockholders.” It is insisted that the record shows that Thos. J. Baten was never in any manner a stockholder of said corporation. An examination of the record shows that Mr. Baten, on the trial below testified: “The stock is now owned by myself and my son, Gordon D. Baten.”
As we view it, the main contention urged by appellant Rio Oil Company for rehearing is that which it calls a “novation” in the contracts under consideration— that is that the “operating agreement,” in force during the pendency and final determination of the “Weed Case,” constituted a “novation” of the lease assignment from Baten to the Gulf Production Company of the Mann lease covering the land in controversy, by reason of which it,, Rio Oil Company, was entitled to recover. Without entering into a discussion of this contention, it is sufficient to say. that no such *661novation was pleaded by appellant; the case was not tried below on any such theory, and was not briefed or argued in this court on original submission on such theory. Its brief contained no assignment of error presenting such question. The contention comes too late when presented for the first time on motion for rehearing. Jones v. Osbolt (Tex.Civ.App.) 46 S.W.(2d) 422 (writ refused); Bank of Garvin v. Freeman, 107 Tex. 523, 181 S.W. 187; 3 Tex.Jur., § 111, p. 168. However, on its merits, the assignment cannot be sustained. On the undisputed evidence, there was no novation.
We have carefully considered the motions for rehearing, and fully adhere to our holdings announced in our original opinion, as to all parties appellants.
The motions are overruled.