Court Opinion

ID: 6546198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-19 22:19:45.416024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:55:58.404097
License: Public Domain

McCulloch, J. Appellee, T. E. Jones, sued appellant, Roberts & Schaeffer Company, a corporation, to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained while working for appellant, and upon trial of the cause before jury he was awarded damages, and judgment was rendered accordingly. Appellant filed its motion for a new trial, assigning various errors; the same was overruled by the court on January 18, 1906, and time was allowed within which to present and file a bill of exceptions. The bill of exceptions was not filed within the time allowed, but the record filed here shows that on a subsequent day of the term the court extended the time, and that the bill of exceptions was filed within that time. Appellee contends that the term of the court lapsed on January 23, 1906, and that the order subsequently entered ex-teading the time for filing the bill of exceptions is a nullity. The transcript certified by the clerk contains orders of the court adjourning over from January 23, 1906, to March 12, and from that day to May 1, the day on which the order was entered extending- the time for filing the bill of exceptions. Appellee filed his motion on a later day of the same term" to correct the record and to set aside the record entry of the order extending the time, and introduced testimony tending to show that there was no adjournment over from January 23, but that the presiding judge vacated the bench, without ordering an adjournment. This motion was overruled, and he brings up the additional record on the hearing of the motion. We must, until the record entries are corrected by proper orders of the court, accept the certificate of the clerk as being absolutely true, and the. frailty of appellee’s position is that he sought to have the trial court, on a subsequent day of the same term, to make a finding that the term had previously lapsed and set aside a former record entry on that account. If the term had in fact lapsed, then the court was not, on a subsequent day of the same term, legally in session, and could not adjudicate the validity of the former record entries. The court only, and not the trial judge, can order the amendment of the record. Appellee further contends that the court, even if legally in session, was powerless to extend the time for filing the bill of exceptions after the expiration of the time first fixed. We will not pass upon that question until it is determined whether or not the court was in fact in session when the order of extension was made. The consideration of appellee’s motion to strike out the bill of exceptions is therefore postponed until the date set for the submission of the cause so as to allow him, if he is so advised, to apply to the lower court in term time to correct the alleged erroneous record entries of the Orders of adjournment.