Court Opinion

ID: 9827674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:45:36.352399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:34.413955
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellants attempt to withdraw the propositions advanced in their argument, upon which we based our judgment of dismissal and now assert, if we understand their argument, that a motion for new trial may be pass*201ed from term to term by tbe trial court at its pleasure, under tbe facts bere shown, and overruled at any succeeding term when it may be called up for adjudication. In this connection they further say: “Tbe only way judgment can become final where a motion for new trial is filed is for that motion to be overruled.”
They further assert, and ask us to agree with them therein, that their motion for new trial was granted at the January-June term, 1929, and that the order granting it was not revoked during that term, and that no attempt to revoke the order granting the motion for new trial was made by the trial court until December 14, 1929, during the succeeding term. Upon these assumed facts they advanced the proposition that the order granting the motion for new trial “was binding and in effect on the adjournment of said term of court and continued in force and effect thereafter and for that reason said judgment of date August 23, 1928, to this good day has not and cannot become final.”
The following excerpt from their argument states their position as they now present their case:
“Appellants respectfully submit to the court that they have never considered that said judgment became final at any time; quite the contrary. Our contention was and is now that said judgment never became final for the reason that said motion for new trial was not overruled but actually granted. As shown by appellants’ brief (pages 21-32) their position was and still is that the trial court was without jurisdiction to enter the order of December 14, 1929, for two reasons:
“(1) The trial court having acted on said motion for new trial by granting it on April 17, 1929, being a regular day of the J’anuary-June, 1929 term of said court, and this order being in full force and effect on the adjournment of said term of court, the lower court had no jurisdiction to further act on said motion after the end of said term of court, because a trial court cannot act on a motion for new trial at a later date than the term of court immediately succeeding the term of court at which it was filed.
“(2) The court having entered an order granting said motion for new trial at one term of court lost its jurisdiction to change, annul, amend or in any way vary said order of court with the expiration of said term of court.”
We cannot permit appellants to withdraw the propositions advanced by them in their argument quoted in the original opinion and on rehearing substitute in lieu thereof propositions asserting the converse of .the position therein taken. That, on the law of these propositions, they lost their 'appeal, does not give them the right to withdraw these propositions and substitute new propositions in lieu thereof. Having had these propositions adjudicated in their favor, they are bound by the legal results thereof and ar'e es-topped to withdraw them. However, in view of the position now taken by appellants, we withdraw what we said in the original opinion construing' subdivisions 28, 29, and 30 of article 2092. We now say, only for the purposes of this opinion, that we adopt appellants’ argument quoted in the original opinion. as the correct construction of the articles in question. On this construction of the articles the judgment of dismissal must be affirmed.
But if we should permit appellants to change their position on the construction of the cited articles our judgment of dismissal would not be modified in the least. They ask us to find that the order granting the motion for new trial during the January-June term, 1929, remained in force and effect until the adjournment of that term of court. For the purpose of this opinion, and only for this purpose, we make this finding strictly in accordance with the request of appellants. The result follows, as they insist, that, on the adjournment of that term of court, the trial court lost jurisdiction further to adjudicate the motion for rehearing, and that the order granting it at the next term of court was absolutely void. If the facts are as appellants assert them, that is, that the trial court granted the motion for new trial during the January-June term and did not revoke the order prior to the adjournment of that term of court, then the case now stands for trial on the docket óf the lower court.
Notwithstanding their proposition that the order granting the motion for new trial is absolutely void, yet they assert their Tight to appeal upon that order and to have reviewed all the assignments of error against the judgment on the merits. This- they cannot do. To confer jurisdiction upon the appellate court where a motion for new trial is relied upon as the basis of the appeal, there must be a valid order overruling the motion, or it must be overruled by the terms of the law, and there must be a due order of notice of appeal. It should be further said that, if appellants are correct in their contention, a point-we cannot adjudicate, that the motion for new trial was in fact granted and not revoked during the January-June term, there is no judgment, to appeal from. Appellants would have all the relief which a reversal would give them.
Again appellants assert, as appears from their propositions quoted above, that the judgment on the merits “never became final.” If they are correct in this proposition, and having advanced it they are bound thereby, then the appeal must be dismissed, because an appeal can only be prosecuted from a final judgment.
The motion for rehearing is in all things overruled.