Court Opinion

ID: 9831439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:06:32.800464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.789657
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In deference to the earnestness, industry and ability of counsel for plaintiff in error, we have with great care reviewed the briefs and record in this case, but we feel constrained to adhere to our former judgment. The principal contention here is based upon suggestion of fundamental error, growing out of what plaintiff in error insists is the insufficiency of the plaintiff’s pleadings. In addition to what has been said with reference to the pleadings of plaintiff, and any apparent defects therein being supplied by'the facts alleged by the opposite parties, we call attention to the prayer of plaintiff’s first amended original petition upon which the case was tried in the court .below. He first prays for judgment against the carriers and the Director General thereof for the amount of his damages, and proceeds as follows:
“But in the event the court finds that the said defendant railway companies delivered said wheat to the Panhandle Grain & Elevator Company, then in the alternative he asks judgments against the Panhandle Grain & Elevator Company for $204.22, with 6 per cent, interest per annum from August 21, 1909, together with all costs of suit,” etc.
In case of Southern Pacific Railway Co. v. Kennedy, 9 Tex. Civ. App. 232, 29 S. W. 394, it is said:
“The understanding which the court had of the petition, and upon which the case was tried *878and submitted (the petition admitting of it), ought to prevail under these circumstances.”
In the case of Ware v. Shafer et al., 88 Tex. 44, 29 S. W. 756, the Supreme Court said:
“The object of pleading is to notify the opposite party of what it is expected to prove as the grfcund of plaintiffs action, or the defendant’s defense, so that he may prepare for the trial of the issues thus tendered. Lemmon v. Hanley, 28 Tex. 220. To determine whether or not a pleading presents a certain issue, it is a safe rule to look at the pleading from the standpoint of the party against whom it is exhibited, and ascertain if the allegations are sufficient to notify him that the evidence offered will be produced, or that he will be called upon to present evidence to meet it.”
[20, 21] A review of the statement of facts demonstrates beyond question that the plaintiff in error clearly .understood that it was being charged with the receipt and acceptance of the full amount of wheat loaded upon the cars at Canyon. The case was tried upon that theory. The trial court correctly construed the pleadings of all parties as presenting such an issue. That the pleadings did not present such an issue was not questioned by demurrer in the lower court, but plaintiff in error prepared its defense and introduced its evidence upon the theory that it was being charged with having received the full amount of wheat so loaded. Under such conditions, it would be 'the refinement of technical defenses, if such really existed, which we do not admit, to reverse this case upon suggestion of fundamental error, made in this court for the first time. It is said in M., K. & T. Ry Co. v. Harris (Tex. Civ. App.) 120 S. W. 535:
“The court did not err in overruling defendant’s exceptions to the allegations of plaintiff’s petition relating to the nature of his injuries, as the sgjne were sufficiently full and specific to apprise the defendant of what it would be called upon to defend against.”
And in the case of Elcan v. Childress, 40 Tex. Civ. App. 193, 89 S. W. 84, where pleas of five and ten years’ statutes of limitations in an action of trespass to try title failed to set up facts necessary to constitute good pleas of limitation, the court said.:
“Where * * * defendants proved without objection every element of the defenses, plaintiffs could not attack the sufficiency of the pleas to sustain the judgment for defendants, when the objection was raised for the first time after the judgment.” (Writ of error denied by the Supreme Court.)
[22] There may not in verbis be an allegation as to the date when the amount sued for was due, but plaintiff in error did not allege that the suit was prematurely filéd and, on the contrary, did allege that it had paid part of the claim under circumstances which amount to accord and satisfaction. In order to sustain the contention of plaintiff in error in this particular, we would have to presume that it had paid the debt before it was dué, which as a matter of common knowledge would be a violent presumption, and that by its failure to plead premature action, it had negligently waived an opportunity to abate the suit, which in view of the industry, energy, and ability of its counsel, manifested herein, would be another more violent presumption. We think the iffeadings as a whole are sufficient; that plaintiff in error had full notice of what issues it would be expected to meet; that the case has been tried upon that theory in the court below; and that it would be giving ear to an inconsistent contention and reversing a judgment upon an extremely technical ground to grant the motion.
The motion is therefore overruled.