Court Opinion

ID: 9831678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:16:53.270045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.885834
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[20] Appellant says in his motion for rehearing that there was no evidence introduced on trial that appellee, at the time she went to live with appellant, was a “buxom, good-looking girl,” as stated in our opinion. The fact is immaterial, and we withdraw the statement. Of course, appellant does not contend that this fact was material, but refers to the matter as evidencing that we relied on appellee’s statement of the facts instead of the record, and proceeds from this point to argue that we drew incorrect conclusions as to other matters that were more material. The only complaint of error in any specific statement of fact made by us is in reference to the pay rolls and time books. We think the evidence sustains the statement we made as to this matter. We did not say, or mean to say, that all of the time books and pay rolls covering the 30 years were in evidence. Most of these had been .destroyed, and parts of the books that were introduced had been torn out, and appellant suggests that those parts of the book which may have been damaging to plaintiff were missing, designedly or otherwise. Whatever might be the truth as to this, the evidence does show that the appellant testified before the production of these books that while he was working on *489the railroad he kept time boohs and made up pay rolls, and that plaintiff’s name was on these boohs, and after the boohs were produced he testified that he did not heep the time of the cooh, and the cooh’s time did not appear on the pay roll. The production of the boohs did also tend to contradict appellant’s evidence to the effect that plaintiff had nothing to do with this part of the business, but merely served him as a cooh and to corroborate the plaintiff in her statement that during all the time they were 'together she tooh an active part in the appellant’s business. All of this is only important as showing that the evidence was such that it required a weighing of the testimony, the acceptance of some of it, and rejection of parts, in order to arrive at the truth, and that the truth is not so manifest as that we can declare what it is in the face of the finding of .the jury, whose province it was to identify it from the mass of conflicts and contradictions in the case.
Appellee calls our attention to the fact that the witness Pat Harris testified that he had known plaintiff and defendant in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi since 1889, and that they lived together and were known in such places as husbamj and wife; so that plaintiff’s testimony as to the manner of them living together in Texas is supported by the direct testimony of two witnesses instead of one, as stated in the opinion, and we make this correction, in such statement
[21 ] The motion for rehearing urges strongly that we were in error in our holding on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth assignments. We have carefully reviewed these assignments, and are of the opinion that the holding was correct. We have become convinced, however, that there are reasons in addition to that stated in the opinion why the assignments should be overruled. In the first -place, we believe that the trial court would have been warranted in concluding from plaintiff’s own testimony that he had no domicile in Mississippi from 1907 to 1911, during the time plaintiff had a house rented in Natchez, and was there part of the time sending the boy to school. This quotation from the appellant’s testimony fairly presents his evidence as to his domicile in Mississippi:
“Earl went to school in Natchez about twelve years. Most of the time for about four years while Earl was going to school in Natchez the plaintiff lived in Natchez with him. That was during 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, and part of 1911. Plaintiff also lived in Natchez in 1915, or rather I moved there in 1915. She was living in Natchez when I left that country. During the first four years the plaintiff lived in Natchez she had a house rented. She rented it herself and paid the rent. She paid the rent herself. She got the money to pay the rent from me. During the period of four years from 1908 to 1911, inclusive, I was living in the camp in Louisiana. I spent about six weeks during those four years at Natchez. Those six weeks were spent there at different times.”
_ He testified in another part of his testimony that—
“Plaintiff was at the camp practically all of .the time except when she was living at Natchez. AVhen she was in Natchez she would come to the camp on Saturday.”
The plaintiff herself testified that during this period she spent a great part of the time at the camp in Louisiana. The defendant by his own testimony thus fixed his residence in Louisiana, and his testimony and that of the plaintiff shows that the stay of the plaintiff in Mississippi was only for a temporary purpose and did not fix the appellant’s domicile in that state over his own express claim of continued residence in Louisiana. It was not shown that any of the property was acquired after the plaintiff and defendant moved to Natchez in 1915, or what, if any, was acquired during the short time that appellant was- engaged in levee work and in camp in the state of Mississippi.
[22] We are also of the opinion that, if there was any issue as to whether appellant’s domicile was in Mississippi during the period of time from 1907 to 1911, the appellant, on account of his failure to request the submission of any such issue to the jury, consented that the court should decide it. R. S. art. 1985; Moore v. Pierson, 100 Tex. 113, 94 S. W. 1132. It was our opinion in the first consideration of the case that the giving of the charge referred to in the twenty-seventh assignment was equivalent to an exclusion of the issue, and that objection to the charge by appellant was all. that was necessary, but we believe we were wrong' in this. Moore v. Pierson, supra.
The other matters presented in the motion have been sufficiently considered, we think, in the original opinion. The motion for rehearing will .be overruled.