Court Opinion

ID: 9831233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:56:49.60042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:32.919774
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Since the case was submitted and decided the appellant association has filed a motion to set aside the submission, and by an application for certiorari asks to be permitted to correct the record. This relief must he denied. Rule 22, Courts' of Civil Appeals, provides as follows:
“A cause will be properly prepared for submission only when a transcript of the record exhibits a cause prepared for appeal i,n accordance with the rules prescribed for the government of the district and county courts and filed in the court under the rules with briefs of one or both parties, in accordance with the rules for the government of the court. All parties will be expected before submission to see that the transcript of the record is properly prepared-and the mere failure to observe omissions or inaccuracies therein will not be admitted after submission as a -reason for correcting the record or obtaining a rehearing.”
CKme was granted for the filing of this motion and for the preparation of a corrected record in the trial court upon representation, made by appellant’s counsel, that the statement of facts had been altered after it was approved by him, and either before or after it was filed in this court. Upon the hearing,'however, appellant’s counsel admits that he is mistaken as to such alteration, and the matter for consideration is the right of a party, after the cause has been submitted and decided, to have the submission set aside, reopen the case, and correct the record. Rule 22, quoted above, was promulgated by the Supreme Court concurrently with the decision in the case of H. & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Parker, 104 Tex. 162, 135 S. W. 369, to settle the practice in matters of this kind, and it is held in that case that the rule shall be conclusive and that the ends of justice will be best promoted by enforcing it in the future, although it may work a hardship in certain instances. Since the decision in that case the courts have uniformly adhered to the rule. M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Hurdle (Tex. Civ. App.) 142 S. W. 992; G., C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Sullivan (Tex. Civ. App.) 178 S. W. 615; Woolley v. Nelson (Tex. Civ. App.) 250 S. W. 481; City National Bank v. Watson (Tex. Civ. App.) 178 S. W. 657; Patrick v. Pierce, 107 Tex. 620, 183 S. W. 441; Huling v. Moore (Tex. Civ. App.) 194 S. W. 188; St. Louis & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Cartwright (Tex. Civ. App.) 151 S. W. 1094; Trimble v. Hawkins (Tex. Civ. App.) 197 S. W. 224.
The original opinion reviews at length the proceedings in the case up to and including November 11, 1922, in which the appellant filed in the court which rendered the default judgment its petition in the nature' of a hill of review to set aside the judgment. After the default judgment was taken and entered on March 10, 1922, the appellant filed its original answer on March 28, 1922, with; out knowing that said judgment had been taken. After learning that the judgment by default had .been entered at the previous term, appellant’s counsel filed on Juné 1, 1922, in the same cause, what is styled “Defendant’s Plea in Reconvention,” in which it reconvenes against the appellee Hill for damages in the sum of $15,000, for unlawfully taking the default judgment, and prays that the case be placed on the July docket for trial in regular order upon the pleadings then o-n file, or upon such amended pleadings as may thereafter be permitted by the court; that the default judgment be set aside; that it have judgment for its damages. Then on November 11, 1922, the appellant filed what is styled “Defendant’s Bill of Review.” This pleading, together with its exhibits, covers 25 pages of the record. It is a detailed statement of the entire transaction and of all pro*127ceedings in the ease including the appellee’s pleadings, the citations, all correspondence between counsel for the several parties, and prays that the former judgment he set aside because it was fraudulently, wrongfully and illegally obtained, because it was entered without any service or appearance and had been rendered upon an abandoned pleading. In reply to this bill of review the appellee filed his “Hirst Supplemental Petition and Answer to Bill of Review,” on November 11, 1922, and on the same day he filed what is styled “Answer of Plaintiffs to Defendant’s Bill of Review.” This pleading covers ten pages of the record and together with his previous pleading the appellee sets up his original cause of action as set out in the original and first amended original petitions, and besides numerous exceptions they contain denials, general and special, of practically every allegation in the bill of review. On the same day the appellant company filed what is styled “Defendant’s Hirst Amended Answer and Cross Action,” which covers nine pages of the record, in which he reconvenes for $850 expenses incurred by reason of the illegal entry of the judgment on the 10th day of March, 1922, and for $10,000 actual damages and $5,000 exemplary damages.
Under this state of the record it is wholly immateriai whether the original judgment was entered without service or not. The pleadings of both parties at the November term of the court presented every issue which' could have been presented at the original term, and more. The appellant company had not only answered, filed a bill of review and a first amended answer, but by cross-action had invoked the judgment of the court upon its plea for damages. We can think of nothing else which the appellant could have filed or done that would have more completely entered its appearance and subjected it to the jurisdiction of the court for the determination of all the issues raised by the pleadings of the parties. Admit that the first judgment was rendered without any service, the answers and cross-actions, aside from the bill of review, gave the court jurisdiction of all the issues between the parties. St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. v. Hale, 109 Tex. 251, 206 S. W. 75; Douglas v. Baker, 79 Tex. 499, 15 S. W. 801; Hickman v. Swain (Tex. Civ. App.) 210 S. W. 548; Benchoff v. Stephenson (Tex. Civ. App.) 72 S. W. 106; Smithers v. Smith, 35 Tex. Civ. App. 508, 80 S. W. 646; Davis v. Russell & Peek (Tex. Civ. App.) 244 S. W. 383.
It is clear, from the record before us and the recitals in the judgment, that the trial judge has tried this case upon the pleadings and the evidence, and that his judgment is one rendered upon a full hearing on the merits. The fact that he did not in terms set aside the first judgment is immaterial. As stated in the original opinion, the trial court, filed no findings of fact; but a careful review of the statement of facts convinces us that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the judgment, and that the controversy has been properly disposed of.
The motion is therefore overruled.