Court Opinion

ID: 9829217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:06:20.831848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:58.525415
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[6, 7] The affidavits appended to the motion for rehearing clearly show that counsel for appellant labored under great difficulties in getting a statement of facts prepared, and the showing made would fully exonerate counsel from any neglect in not filing the statement of facts within the 90 days if it had been filed at any time in the trial court. There was a failure to do but one necessary thing, and that was the filing in the lower court. Had that been done, upon the showing made in the motion for rehearing, the statement of facts would have been considered by this court. No power has been given the clerk of this court, or to any justice of the court, to refuse to permit the filing of a *701statement of facts which was not properly prepared in the lower court, and the filing in this court does not preclude the court from a refusal to consider such, statement, nor estop it from exercising the duty of rejecting a paper purporting to be a statement of facts, but which is not such statement because not filed in the lower court. If the statement of facts, so called, was properly filed in this court, that does not relieve appellant of the effects of a failure to file in the lower court. That filing is essential to the vitality and validity of a statement of facts, and the filing in this court could not give life to a document that had never been brought into legal existence. It is not the duty of this court, or any member thereof, nor of the clerk, to investigate a statement of facts and pass on its validity before it is filed; but that duty devolves on the court when the matter is called to its attention in a motion to strike out such statement, or in the investigation of the case.
[8] No excuse is given for a failure to file in the trial court, and the fact that counsel for appellee may have agreed that the statement of facts might be filed out of time did not relieve appellant of the duty and necessity of filing the statement in the trial court. The agreement may have put the statement of facts in the same position that it occupied before the time expired; that is, prepared it so that it could be filed in the lower court. The agreement could not dispense with the filing, and did not attempt so to do.
It is to be regretted that the agent to whom counsel confided the duty of filing the statement of facts did not file the same, and that he offers no excuse for such failure. It is not claimed, nor attempted to be shown, that the agent ever presented the statement of facts to the district clerk.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.