Court Opinion

ID: 9828190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:11:49.407144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:45.429429
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants have filed a motion for rehearing, urging that the court erred in striking out the statement of facts filed in this court, because same had not been filed in the trial court. It is contended by appellants in their motion that we erred in holding that the statement of facts had not been filed in the trial court, and they have filed an affidavit of the clerk of the trial court stating that said statement of facts was filed in said court, and that a copy of said statement of facts was then on file in the office of said clerk. In. answer to this motion, appellee has filed several affidavits going to show that the statement of facts was never filed in the trial court.
(1) The affidavit of Judge J. S. McKee, county judge of Jasper county, Texas, who tried the case, to the effect that he did not approve the statement of facts in person, but that one of the counsel for appellants telephoned him from Beaumont that the time for filing the statement of facts in the Court of Civil Appeals was very short, and requested him, Judge McKee, that he authorize A. M. Huffman, an attorney of Beaumont, to sign his (McKee’s) name to the statement of facts, approving same, which he did, and that, in fact, said statement of facts was not presented to him for approval, but that his name was signed to same by Huffman at the request of appellants’ attorney.
(2) The affidavit of A. M. Huffman, an attorney of Beaumont, Texas, stating that one of counsel for appellants came to him with the statement of facts in the instant case, and requested that he sign Judge McKee’s name to said statement of facts in approval of same, which, after a conversation over the phone with Judge McKee, he did. Huffman, in his affidavit, then says:
“Mr. Stephenson then said that was the last day that he had to file the statement of facts in the Court of Civil Appeals, and he went from my office, according to his statement, directly to the clerk’s office of the Court of Civil Appeals to filé same. I called his attention to the fact that the statement of facts had not been filed in the trial court, and he said that he didn’t think that was necessary, and that he did not have time to do so, as he could not send the statement of facts to Jasper and get it back to Beaumont that day.”'
(3) An affidavit by the county clerk of Jasper county, Texas, the clerk of the court that tried the case, stating that on January 22, 1926, she received from counsel for appellants a statement of facts in the instant case, and that she received only one copy of said .statement of facts, only filed one copy, and that copy is still on file in her office. She states also in her affidavit that she has inspected the original statement of facts in the case, marked filed in the Court of Civil Appeals on January 21, 1926, and that it was never filed by her. This affidavit was given in explanation of another that she had given counsel for appellants, which was filed in this court in answer to appellee’s motion to strike out the statement of facts on original hearing.
' The original statement of facts stricken here was filed in this court on January 21, 1926. The affidavit of the clerk of the trial court shows that the copy of the statement of facts, and which she says was the only one that she ever received or filed, was filed *281in lier office on January 22, 1926, one day after tlie original was filed in this court. The original statement of facts shows for itself that it was never filed in the trial court. Appellants cite us to several authorities as sustaining their contention, but when inspected these were not eases where the statement of facts was not filed in the trial court, but were all cases where the statement of facts were filed late in the appellate courts.
The motion is overruled.