Court Opinion

ID: 9830242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:01:00.086013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:16.570890
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In their motion for rehearing appellants say that since the matters here in controversy were submitted to the court below upon an agreed statement of facts, and since that court filed express findings of fact and conclusions of law, this court materially erred by viewing the evidence contained in the agreed statement and such reasonable inferences and deductions as may properly be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the landowners.
We recognize that when a case is submitted to the court upon an agreed statement of facts in accordance with the provisions of Rule 263, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, the court is confined as a general rule, in the absence of some agreement to the contrary, to the facts contained in such statement. Texas-Mexican R. Co. v. Scott, 60 Tex.Civ.App. 482, 129 S.W. 1170. Ordinarily the court is without authority, under such circumstances, to draw any inference or find any fact not embraced in the agreement unless as a matter of law such further inference or fact is necessarily compelled by the evi-dentiary facts agreed upon. Hutcherson et al v. Sovereign Camp W. O. W., 112 Tex. 551, 251 S.W. 491. However, we do not think this general rule is material to ' the contentions urged by appellants or that it is of controlling effect in its application *713to the record now before us for reasons which we shall note briefly.
The agreed statement upon which this case - was tried is voluminous and complicated. Although it contains numerous exhibits and the recitation of various evi-dentiary matters, it does not contain any express provision as to whether each separate lease agreement represented an “arm’s length” transaction between each landowner and the trustees or as to whether such leases created a fiduciary relationship between the parties thereto. The trial judge did not make any express finding on these issues but by reference he adopted the agreed statement of facts in its entirety as his findings and thereupon he concluded generally that the landowners, and not the certificate holders, were the rightful owners of the fund in controversy. After he had thus filed his original findings of fact and conclusions of law, none of the parties thereafter requested of him any further, additional or amended findings.
Under the pleadings and the agreed statement in this case the plaintiffs were undoubtedly entitled to a judgment relieving them from further liability to either of the two groups of adverse claimants to the fund in controversy. But in order to grant them the relief to which they were thus entitled it was necessary for the trial court to determine the rightful ownership of the fund as between the two contending groups of claimants. The certificate holders as appellants in this court contend that a material issue in determining the rightful ownership of the fund was and is whether each separate lease agreement represented an “arm’s length” transaction. While this ultimate issue was not directly disposed of in the agreed statement or in the express findings of the trial court, we think the evidence contained in the agreed statement necessarily compelled the inference that plaintiffs were acting as agents or trustees for the landowners in the execution of all the leases. If so, then it necessarily follows that each separate lease agreement did not represent an “arm’s length” transaction.
But if the evidence in the agreed statement did not compel an inference as a matter of law that each separate lease did or did not represent an “arm’s length” transaction as distinguished from a fiduciary relationship, then we think it must be held that since the parties submitted the case to the court upon the agreed state-ment under the circumstances here involved they thereby intended and in effect agreed that the trial court might make his own findings upon any ultimate material issue of fact, if any, raised by the evidence contained in the agreed statement. If so, then it was and is the duty of this court, in passing upon the contentions here asserted, to view the evidence contained in the agreed statement and the reasonable inferences and deductions that may be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the landowners and to assume that the trial court found all issuable facts raised thereby, if any, in support of the judgment appealed from. Besteiro v. Besteiro, Tex.Com.App., 65 S.W.2d 759, point 5, Eaton v. Husted, 141 Tex. 349, 172 S.W.2d 493, point 2; Steere v. Stockyards Nat. Bank, Tex.Civ.App., 266 S.W. 531, point 2, err. ref.; Patterson v. Farmers’ Royalty Holdings Co., Tex.Civ.App., 79 S.W.2d 917, point 1, err. dis.; Straus v. Shamblin, Tex.Civ.App., 120 S.W.2d 598, point 4, err. dis.; Corbett v. State et al., Tex.Civ.App., 153 S.W.2d 664, point 2, err. ref.
Having carefully considered the motion of appellants for rehearing, we have concluded the same should be overruled, and it is accordingly so ordered.