Court Opinion

ID: 9833480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:45:08.876647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:03.336807
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[3] Appellant refers to the following language in our original opinion, to wit:
“There being no statement of facts in the record, we feel it our duty to impute to the court findings of fact necessary to sustain the judgment, and that evidence was introduced sufficient to sustain such findings.”
Appellant cites us to the eases of Chance v. Branch, 58 Tex. 490, Cousins v. Grey, 60 Tex. 346, Continental Insurance Co. v. Milliken, 64 Tex. 46, Kimball v. Houston Oil Co., 100 Tex. 336, 99 S. W. 852, and articles 1990 and 1991, Revised Statutes, as authority for the proposition that, where the court has filed his findings of fact and conclusions of law, and in the absence of a statement of facts, “the appellant having excepted to and the appellee having acquiesced in said findings of fact, same must be looked to solely as the basis of said judgment.”
Appellant presented only two assignments of error, one attacking the court’s conclusions of law, and the other leveled at the court’s action in rendering judgment for appellee. No finding of fact was assailed. Plaintiff’s pleadings justified the admission of parol evidence to explain the seeming ambiguity in the instrument sued on, and alleged facts which, if proven, would have amply sustained plaintiff’s theory that the contract as agreed upon by the parties, and as evidenced by the written instrument, contemplated the beginning of a well upon each quarter section in order to prevent forfeiture of the lease thereon. We do not think, in our holding, to the effect that we should impute to the court findings in harmony with plaintiff’s pleadings, and in assuming that evidence was introduced in conformity with such allegations, we were in conflict with the cases relied on by appellant, and cited above. As said in Kimball v. Houston Oil Co., supra:
“It may sometimes happen that findings omit any mention of a fact, proof of which would be essential to the correctness of the judgment, and that, in the absence of anything said about it, such fact should be presumed; and we are not to be understood as holding that such findings are to be treated as special verdicts were formerly treated and required to state affirmatively every fact necessary to support the judgment. Thomas v. Quarles, 64 Tex. 493.”
See, also, Paden, Adm’r, v. Briscoe, 81 Tex. 563, 17 S. W. 42.
It certainly is not to be required of the trial court that he shall set forth in his findings of fact every bit of probative evidence sustaining his conclusions, in order for such conclusions to be upheld. Necessarily, many evidentiary facts must be omitted. In preparing his findings of fact and conclusions of *517law, the trial court need not state the evidence upon which he bases his findings or conclusions. Gordon v. McCall, 20 Tex. Civ. App. 283, 48 S. W. 1111. In the case of Oldham v. Medearis, 90 Tex. 506, 39 S. W. 919, it is held that a finding that “Oldham, being ignorant and illiterate, was not negligent in not discovering the said shortage (in the land) sooner,” would not justify the Court of Appeals in treating the finding of the trial court, that Oldham was not negligent, as based entirely upon.the fact that Oldham was “ignorant and illiterate.” In the instant case, as evidence of the fact that the court held the contract or lease to be ambiguous, and that there was evidence supporting the theory of a separate lease as to each quarter section, it will be noted that in the findings themselves, the stenographer was directed to underscore in black ink with a pen those portions of the original lease shown to be written with pen, and to underscore in red ink with a pen those portions shown to be typewritten. The court further found that the 3,040 acres embraced in the tract had been, prior to the execution of the lease, patented in separate quarter sections. Thus is evidenced the purpose of the court to show that he reached his stated conclusions of law favorable to appellee by reason of evidence showing that the parties dealt with the land as being composed of separate tracts, and that they understood that the lease contract was seyerable as to the various quarter sections. As held by the Supreme Court in the Oldham Case, supra, we are not justified in-concluding that the facts stated constituted the only evidence upon this issue, but we are justified in assuming that there was other evidence to the same effect deemed by the court, in conjunction with the facts stated, sufficient to establish plaintiff’s contention.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.