Court Opinion

ID: 9778774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:20:04.478099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:13.081076
License: Public Domain

WHITHAM, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. While I do not address each of my concerns with the majority opinion, I must specify my disagreement with the majority’s disposition of the issue of whether Gillum is foreclosed from contesting the judgment as to all of the appellees. To the extent that the majority’s opinion can be read to mean that a judgment “approved as to form and substance” renders the judgment a consent or agreed judgment, I disagree. I am unwilling to read “approved as to form and substance” as the equivalent of “agreed to and approved.” Instead, to my mind, “approved as to form and substance” is virtually the same as “approved as to form” or “approved as to form only.” Thus, in my view, “approved as to substance” means nothing more than that Gillum approved the language used in the document as expressing the correct recapitulation of the matter being disposed of by the trial court’s final judgment. We must be careful that notations on judgments such as in the present ease, placed there as a courtesy to bench and bar, not be read to stipulate away any losing party’s position on appeal. See Guaranty Federal Savings & Loan Ass’n v. Horseshoe Operating Co., 748 S.W.2d 519, 530 (Tex.App.— Dallas 1988, writ pending).