Court Opinion

ID: 9833696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:57:16.238717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:05.983545
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[7] We believe the fourth assignment by the appellant should be sustained, and that the court was in error in admitting, over the objection of the appellant, parol testimony as to the issues of a certificate of stock to Cantrell. The issuance of the stock to him should be established by the stock itself, and we think that it should be produced as the best evidences of its issuance and existence. This is the fact upon which appellee’s right of recovery, in a measure, depended, and parol evidence ought not be permitted to establish such fact, in the absence of the proper predicate for its nonproduetion. Harvey v. Cummings, 68 Tex. 599, 5 S. W. 513. A delivery of the certificate, of course, could be shown by parol. The testimony of Cantrell that he left the certificate in the hands of the attorney for the company does not necessarily prove that it was ever delivered to him by the company. It is just as consistent that he saw it there first and left it as that it was delivered to him, and that he took it to the attorney and left it with him. The facts show in this case, according to our view, that it was under the control of the company, and that it was retained to secure the payment of the note. The issuance and existence of the certificate was capable of better proof than by parol. The delivery to Cantrell we do not think sufficiently proven, and on that ground we reversed and rendered this case. Perhaps, under the rule, we should have reversed and remanded, as our conclusion of the facts must necessarily be contrary to the findings of tlie trial court.
The judgment, therefore, reversing and rendering, will be set aside, and the case reversed and remanded, and to that extent the motion for rehearing will be granted.