Court Opinion

ID: 9827632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:43:06.979637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:33.964591
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
In a motion for a rehearing appellant complains of the holding of this Court in the original opinion to the effect that both this Court and appellant were bound by the findings of the trial court and that such findings must be accepted as true unless they are excepted to and assignments of error are shown by the record challenging them to be untrue. Appellant contends that such rule does not apply since this was a non-jury case and no motion for a new trial was required and exceptions and assignments of error were not necessary, but we adhere to such ruling in considering appellant’s motion for a rehearing. We think such is certainly the rule when no statement of facts has been filed and, in our opinion, such a rule should apply as well when an incomplete statement of facts has been filed.
In this case appellant requested findings of fact by the trial court and such were made and filed. Appellant did not except or object to them, did not ask for any further findings, nor did he challenge them anywhere in the record, but he did complain about them for the first time in his brief.
The certificate of the court reporter and the agreement of counsel approved by the trial judge disclose that the statement of facts in this case contained two volumes, namely, volume 1, containing pages 1 to 322, and volume 2, containing pages 323 to 657. Volume 1 has never reached this Court and the notices indicate that only one volume was filed in the Beaumont Court of Civil Appeals, from which court this case was transferred to us. We have no way of determining whether or not the findings of the trial court are supported by the evidence except for the admissions made against interest in the briefs and by checking as best we can against the testimony found in volume 2, which is available. In so far as we can determine from that part of the record before us it appears that the evidence supports the findings of the trial court. Under the circumstances, it is our opinion that if only one-half of the statement of facts is made available to us, such is equivalent to no statement of facts since there is no way for us to safely determine from an incomplete statement of facts whether or not the evidence supports the findings *205of the trial court. It is therefore our opinion that the same rule would apply in this case wherein only an incomplete statement of facts has been filed as if no statement of facts had been filed. Authorities supporting such a rule have been cited in the original opinion.
We find that all matters raised in appellant’s motion for rehearing have already been considered by us and we believe the case was properly disposed of in the original opinion. Appellant’s motion for a rehearing is therefore overruled.