Court Opinion

ID: 9832022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:33:10.20995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.197255
License: Public Domain

Appellees’ Motions for Rehearing.
The appellees criticize our citation of the case of the City National Bank v. Morgan (Tex. Civ. App.) 258 S. W. 572, and claim that the quotation made by us from that opinion does not present the real holding of the court in that ease; also that, in the same case on another appeal [(Tex. Civ. App.) 277 S. W. 403], we held that Judge Boyce in the first ease laid down abstract propositions based on the plaintiff’s.pleadings, which were not intended .as an adjudication of the rights of the plaintiff under the evidence in the case. We did make that assertion in reply to a proposition made by the parties in that case( but we did not intqnd to say, and, the language of the opinion in the last-cited case cannot be made to bear the construction, that we recognize the rule to be that there would be no liability independent of a contract.
The second appeal was taken from a trial had in conformity to Judge Boyce’s ruling; the case was submitted upon a proper charge at the second trial, and, because the jury found upon every issue of facts submitted to them, we affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
In this case, the question of solvency or insolvency of Abney is absolutely immaterial to the decision of the questions discussed. The facts in the case are almost without dispute. Do such facts constitute, in their relation to the conduct of the parties, such circumstances as should go to the jury under proper instructions, for them to weigh in deciding whether or not there was a conspiracy between the bank, Gardner, and Abney? We think so.
In this case there is no direct evidence of such conspiracy between the parties and the jury should have been told that fraud could *865be shown by circumstantial evidence, so that there would be no question but that they passed upon the main question (i. e., the existence of a conspiracy) from all of the facts and circumstances in evidence.
The rule that we have applied here is not dependent upon the ease being based wholly upon circumstantial evidence, for, in the absence of direct evidence of fraud, many facts that are shown by uneontroverted evidence might be circumstances leading to a conclusion of fraud.
All motions for rehearing are overruled.