Court Opinion

ID: 9645170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:15:03.540862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:24.416404
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Appellee argues in its motion for rehearing that we erred in stating that no statement of facts is available for review of the evidence on damages. It points out that the transcript contains a document entitled “Statement of Facts of Evidence at Hearing on September 11,1974,” signed by counsel for appellee, reciting that the court heard testimony to the effect that the value of the property shipped and lost by appellant was $724.50.
Appellee admits that this document was not agreed to by appellant or certified as correct by the trial judge. Appellee argues, nevertheless, that in absence of objection by appellant, this unilateral statement of the evidence must be accepted as a proper statement of facts under the following provision of Tex.R.Civ.P. 377(a):
A party may prepare and file with the clerk a condensed statement in narrative form of all or part of the testimony and deliver a true copy thereof to the opposing party or his counsel, and such opposing party, if dissatisfied with the narrative statement, may require the testimony in question and answer form to be substituted for all or part thereof.
In support of this contention appel-lee relies on Pacific Fire Insurance Co. v. Smith, 145 Tex. 482, 199 S.W.2d 486 (1947). We cannot agree that either the Smith deci*316sion or rule 377(a) requires us to accept one party’s narrative statement of evidence which the other party did not hear as a basis for review. In Smith, a statement of evidence prepared by appellant’s counsel, who had participated in the trial, was held sufficient for review in absence of objection. Lack of a certificate by the judge was regarded as an “informality,” which was waived by failing to file a motion within thirty days as required by Tex.R.Civ.P. 404. Different considerations apply where the appellant was not present at the trial and an uncertified statement of the evidence is filed by appellee. In this situation the appellant is not in a position to determine whether the uncertified statement is correct or not. Consequently, absence of objection should not be taken as a waiver of a properly certified record.
Appellee insists that appellant had the duty under rule 377(a) to object to appellee’s narrative statement and, if dissatisfied, then to “require that testimony in question and answer form to be substituted for all or a part thereof.” This language of rule 377(a) assumes that the testimony has been recorded in question-and-answer form. Waller v. O’Rear, 472 S.W.2d 789, 792 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1971, writ ref’d n. r. e.). Since the official reporter had certified that the testimony had not been recorded, a further request for evidence in question-and-answer form could not have procured a transcript of the actual testimony heard by the court. The rule should not be construed as requiring a meaningless formality unrelated to a just and fair adjudication of the rights of the litigants. Tex.R.Civ.P. 1.
Motion overruled.