Court Opinion

ID: 9770735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:20:08.48315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:20.129032
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Excellent briefs have been filed by both sides concerning the appellees’ motion for rehearing. In the motion, appellees contend that the case should not be remanded for further litigation on the issue of fraud. The appellees put emphasis on the fact that *854Dickson was the designated representative of the corporation for purposes of this suit. Rule 201 provides for such a designation. Although notice to a president of a corporation is notice to the company40 and a company can be considered to have knowledge of all the facts known to its representative,41 we have found no cases, nor have any been cited to us, that require a president of a corporation or the corporation’s designated representative to possess the knowledge of all the facts relative to the litigation.42 To so hold, would be to set a precedent that might sometimes require the impossible on the part of the designated representative or corporate president.
The appellees could have sought to perfect their summary judgment proof on this point by establishing that there had been testimony that Dickson was the only person in the corporation that had such knowledge about the transaction or by negating the possibility that other officers or employees of the corporation could have possessed this knowledge. Furthermore, the appellees could have required specificity in the pleadings which would not leave this Court to speculate upon what the contended fraud was based. Under the new rules of Civil Procedure, Dickson Construction, Inc. would have the burden on this element in a summary judgment proceeding and, of course, Dickson Construction, Inc. would also have the burden at the trial of such case. But under the applicable rule, as written at the time the summary judgment was granted, the appellees were required to conclusively disprove this contention as a matter of law. They did not.
Because of the nature of the proceeding and the state of the record, we overrule the appellees’ motion for rehearing.

. Phillips v. Hopwood, 329 S.W.2d 452, 455 (Tex.Civ.App.-Houston 1959).

. Texas Utils. Elec. Co. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 786 S.W.2d 792, 793 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1990)

. A witness may fit the description in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village:
"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew.”
But, no witness can be expected to know the answer to every question.