Court Opinion

ID: 9762105
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:10:42.525824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:30.133237
License: Public Domain

CALVERT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
Being thoroughly convinced from the record before us that the error sought to be corrected by Judge Blankenship was a clerical and not a judicial error, I must respectfully dissent. If the error was a clerical error, the nunc pro tunc judgment of October 23, 1969 and the subsequent order, granting a new trial are valid, and the prayer for a writ of mandamus should be denied.
The precise question before us is whether the finding contained in the draft of *407judgment entered1 in the court’s minutes that the defendant “failed to appear and answer herein” is a correct record of the finding actually made by the court in rendering judgment or whether it is an incorrect record thereof. If it is a correct record of the finding actually made, there was a judicial error in rendition inasmuch as the record shows conclusively that the defendant had answered and that the judge knew it; but if it is an incorrect record of the finding actually made, the error is clerical in the judgment’s entry and is correctable. As illustrating the difference, see for clerical errors which are correctable, Knox v. Long, 152 Tex. 291, 257 S.W. 2d 289 (1953) and Coleman v. Zapp, 105 Tex. 491, 151 S.W. 1040 (1912), and for judicial errors which are uncorrectable, Love v. State Bank & Trust Co., 126 Tex. 591, 90 S.W.2d 819 (1936) and Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Haynes, 82 Tex. 448, 18 S.W. 605 (1891). As said in Coleman v. Zapp, that case and Missouri Pac. Railway Co. v. Haynes
“ * * * well illustrate the distinction which lies clearly defined between a suit to correct a judgment because of a mistake of the court in its rendition, whereby an improper judgment is rendered but its entry is in accordance with the rendition, and a proceeding to corrct or supply the minutes of the court so as to have them truly recite the judgment actually rendered.”
The rule announced and followed in the foregoing cases is just as applicable to efforts to correct findings made by a court in the rendition of judgment as to efforts to correct errors in the decretal part of the judgment. Rule 316, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; Finlay v. Jones, 435 S.W.2d 136 (Tex.Sup.1969).
Although we recognized in Knox v. Long, supra, and in Comet Aluminum Co. v. Dibrell, 450 S.W.2d 56 (Tex.Sup.1970), that a judgment may be rendered either by oral pronouncement from the bench or by written memorandum signed by the judge and filed with the clerk, we know that rendition by written memorandum usually occurs only in trials to a jury and then only when an oral pronouncement is not made. Without expressly so stating, the majority treat the written draft of judgment of June 10, 1966, signed by the judge and filed with the clerk, as constituting a rendition of judgment. If this assumption were correct, the majority’s conclusion that the erroneous finding as to the failure of the defendant to appear and answer is a judicial error would also be correct; but the assumption is not correct.
The trial court conducted a hearing on August 7, 1969 to determine what orders or judgments had beeen rendered on June 10, 1966. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court, “having heard the evidence and the arguments of counsel,” found “that in truth and in fact the defendant, B. W. Rush, filed a written answer herein on May 24, 1966, that thereafter the Court, on motion of the Plaintiff, set aside the answer of B. W. Rush because said answer was not timely filed, and thereafter rendered Default Judgment against B. W. Rush * * Having made the quoted findings, the court proceeded to render the nunc pro tunc judgment described in the majority opinion.
I emphasize that the court’s quoted findings were made only after “having heard the evidence.” The court was authorized to make the findings from oral evidence and his own recollection. The State v. Womack, 17 Tex. 237, 238 (1856); Kluck v. Spitzer, 54 S.W.2d 1063 (Tex.Civ.App.— Waco 1932, no writ). In the absence of a record of the evidence heard, the finding is entitled to absolute verity. I also emphasize that the court found that on motion of the plaintiff the court set aside the answer of Rush and “thereafter rendered” default judgment. These findings can mean only that the judge made oral pronouncements on June 10, 1966, first, that the answer of Rush was set aside, and *408second, that the plaintiff recover judgment against the defendant by default. This being so, the writing signed on June 10, 1966 did not constitute a rendition of judgment; rather, it is a written memorial of the judgment rendered by oral pronouncement. To hold that the writing constituted a rendition of judgment would impeach the trial court’s findings that he acted on the two matters separately and in sequence rather than simultaneously.
What I have said concerning the rendition of judgment in this case clearly distinguishes it from Finlay v. Jones, 435 S.W.2d 136 (Tex.Sup.1968). There is nothing in the record or in our opinion in Finlay v. Jones which presents the slightest indication that judgment in that case was rendered by oral pronouncement, or, if so rendered, that the writing did not correctly reflect the judgment rendered and findings made with respect to the matter of service of citation and answer by the defendant. In that case we were concerned only with the question of whether a judge could, nunc pro tunc, correct an error he had made in rendering judgment. We held that the error was judicial in the rendition of judgment rather than clerical in the entry of a judgment theretofore rendered and was unauthorized and void. We made an identical holding with respect to an effort to correct an error made in rendering judgment in Comet Aluminum Co. v. Dibrell, 450 S.W.2d 56 (Tex.Sup.1970).
I would hold the nunc pro tunc judgment of October 23rd to be a valid judgment. Having so decided, I would then hold that the trial court was authorized to grant respondent’s motion for new trial by virtue of the provisions of Rule 306b, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.
WALKER, J., joins in this dissent.

. Emphasis mine throughout unless otherwise indicated.