Court Opinion

ID: 9827021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:04:22.974311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:25:55.917117
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOE EEHEAEING.
This court did not, as contended by appellant, lose sight of the fact that the sheriff testified that when at home he visited the jail daily, and exercised authority over it, and it also kept in mind that the prisoner was not delivered to the sheriff in person, and that others were in actual charge of the jail, and that a jury could from these facts, and others in *548proof, find that appellee had no reference to the sheriff in its publication. If the proof had shown that appellant alone had charge of the jail, then the publication could have referred to no one else, but he was only in charge through his deputies, and while this in law might make him responsible, it could not fix and determine who was meant by appellee in the publication. No person was mentioned by name, and the publication is made to apply to appellant in the petition .only through innuendo, and it is a question of fact, and not of law, as to whom the language applied. Suppose there were, as shown, several persons superintending the .jail, and it was not known who was actually in charge, it could not certainly be maintained that everyone must as a matter of law know that the sheriff was the responsible party. In this case the uncertainty as to who was responsible for the unlawful detention of the prisoner was intensified by the fact that the jail was used for the detention of Federal as well as State prisoners. It is insisted by appellant that this court erred in not considering his second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth assignments of error, and insists that the case of Land Company v. McClelland, 86 Texas, 179, sustains the assignments' and requires consideration of them. The decision does hold that such assignments are sufficient, but it does not hold that they must be considered when they are not propositions in themselves and are not followed by propositions. An assignment .of error may be a sufficient basis for a proposition and yet not be a proposition, and it will not be considered unless it was followed by a proposition. As said in the case cited: "An assignment may be brief and yet specific, and brevity in such a case is commendable and accords with good practice. The reasons by which allegations of error are sought to be sustained find their proper place in the propositions, statements, and authorities required to be set forth in the brief, under and in support of the respective assignments.”
It is required in rule 30 for the courts of civil appeals, that "each point under each one of the assignments relied upon shall be stated in the shape of a proposition, unless the assignment itself is in the shape of a proposition to be maintained, and then it will be sufficient to copy the assignment.” The Supreme Court holds that courts of civil appeals have the authority to disregard assignments of error, not propositions within themselves, not followed by propositions. Cooper v. Hiner, 91 Texas, 658. In the case of Railway v. Higgins, 22 Texas Civil Appeals, 430, the assignments were almost identical with the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth assignments of error, and they were not considered. A writ of error was refused. Under the heading "third assignment of error” are copied two assignments of error numbered in the record tenth and fourteenth. The tenth is similar to the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth assignments of error. The fourteenth is: “The court erred in that part of the eighth paragraph of its charges to the jury which requires the jury, before they can give a verdict against defendant Hughes D. Slater, to find that at the time of the publication complained df he was *549in the actual personal exercise of his authority over the" columns of said paper." Why it was error to so charge does not appear in the assignment of error, and there is no proposition that gives the explanation. Kruegel v. Berry, 75 Texas, 230.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.

Overruled.