Court Opinion

ID: 9832688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:06:29.535325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:50.214554
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee urges a rehearing, and to that end now seeks to correct the record before us by tendering a copy of the appeal bond in fact filed and approved in the justice court and transmitted to the county court together with the other papers by the justice of the peace, but which was omitted from the transcript to this court through an oversight of appellant’s counsel. To now so permit the correction of the record, by whomsoever the fault, would be in direct opposition to rule 22 (142 S. W. xii) for the court of Civil Appeals as amended and set forth by our Supreme Court in the case of H. & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Parker, 104 Tex. 162, 135 S. W. 369. As amended the rule reads;
“A cause -will be properly prepared for submission only when a transcript of the record exhibits a cause prepared for appeal in accordance with the rules prescribed for the government of the district and county courts, and filed in the court under the rules, with briefs of one or of both the parties, in accordance with the rules for the government of the court. All parties will be expected, before submission, to see that the transcript of the record is properly prepared, and the mere failure to observe omissions or inaccuracies therein will not be admitted, after submission, as a reason for correcting the record or obtaining a rehearing.”
It will be noted that by the rule each party to an appeal to this court is alike charged with the duty of seeing that the transcript is properly prepared before the submission of the cause; and an inquiry, therefore, of whose the fault or miscarriage that brought about a failure is wholly immaterial.
But if for any reason in this instance we could overlook the rule and follow the practice indicated in the case of Wells v. Driskell, 105 Tex. 77, 145 S. W. 333, the amendment of the record as now sought would avail appellee nothing, for the reason, as pointed out in our original opinion, that the transcript fails to show jurisdiction in the justice court, in that the value of the property upon which the plaintiff sought to foreclose a mortgage was not alleged, nor did such value otherwise appear, as was necessary. See authorities cited in our original opinion. The rule that the jurisdiction of the court from which an appeal has been prosecuted must be made to affirmatively appear, applies to the county court as well as to this court. See Merrick v. Rogers, 46 S. W. 370; T. & P. Ry. Co. v. Jordan, 83 S. W. 1105; Penn Fire Insurance Co. v. Pounders, 84 S. W. 666; Albritton v. First Nat. Bank of Mexia, 85 S. W. 1008; Bonner v. Legg & Tindall, 46 Tex. Civ. App. 176, 101 S. W. 839; Needham v. Austin Electric Co., 127 S. W. 904.
Appellee suggests that an amended petition filed in the justice court authorizes the conclusion that the plaintiff abandoned his prayer to foreclose the mortgage. But we have examined this paper, and while it is styled an amended petition and is without a prayer for a foreclosure of the mortgage, it is in its real nature a reply to the defendant’s answer, -and should have been designated as a supplemental petition. There was no express withdrawal of the original prayer for a foreclosure and the record manifests that there was in fact no abandonment of this feature of the plaintiff’s case, for, as affirmatively appears from the transcript from the justice court, the judgment of that court actually foreclosed the mortgage. So that we see no escape from the conclusion that we should deny appellee’s motion to amend the record.
Appellee insists, however, that in such event we should dismiss the appeal instead of reversing the judgment and remanding the cause, as we did on the original hearing. *660But we had occasion to consider this precise •question in the case of Ware v. Clark, 125 S. W. 618, cited in our original opinion, and there held that in cases like this the proper practice is to reverse the judgment and remand the case with instructions to the county court to dismiss the ease, unless the necessary jurisdictional facts are shown, if possible, in some legal way. We still think this the proper practice, and the motion for rehearing is accordingly in all things overruled.