Court Opinion

ID: 9833204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:31:23.910586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:00.461873
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellant urges that in overruling the third and fourth propositions in the brief the decision is in direct conflict with tiie ruling on the identical propositions in the companion, case of F. B. Collins Investment Co. v. Mills et ux., 254 S. W. 999. Had the facts of the two cases, relative to the propositions, been the same, the ease cited would have controlled and been decisive of the ruling. But the facts do not appear the same. In the Mills Case, supra, there appeared in evidence the application of Mr. Mills for the loan, and which, as the opinion recites, “the appellee Mills admitted that he signed in manner and form as given.” Of course, in such facts, the terms of the written instrument could not be Varied or contradicted by oral evidence, in the absence of fraud, accident, or mistake. However, in the instant appeal the original application for the loan was not offered in evidence. There does not appear in the recórd any explanation of its absence on the -trial. A form of application claimed , to be a copy was exhibited in evidence, but the appellee in respect thereto testified:
“The application I made to the F. B. Collins Investment Company was dated February, 1920. It was not in February, 1921. I am sure of that. This is not my signature to this application. I do not know whose it is. It is my name; I do not know who signed it. I did not. I did sign an application for this loan in February, 1920. This is not the application that I signed. This application purports to be February 25, 1921. The facts in this application is not a true copy of the facts- that I stated in the original application.”
This tei-stim.ony was not disputed, and the purported copy was not further proven or identified, and does not appear in the record. In the absence of the original application or legal proof of its contents, this court cannot determine, especially in the record, that the oral testimony of the appellee, as complained of, did vary or even tend to vary the original written terms of contract. Neither the bill of exception nor the statement of facts so shows.
The motion is in all things overruled.