Court Opinion

ID: 9830991
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:41:03.378948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:29.098390
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing, appellee urges that we were in error in our original opinion in applying the rule that an agreement not supported by a consideration for a creditor to receive a less sum than the whole will not discharge the debt. It is urged that a written instrument, such as the receipts executed by the appellant to the appellee herein, imports a consideration, and that the appellant did not plead in the court below a failure of consideration, nor was such plea verified, as is required under article 1906, subd. 10, V. S. Tex. Civ. Statutes, in effect providing that an answer that a written instrument upon which a pleading *616is founded is without consideration, or that the consideration of the same has failed in whole or in part, must be verified. Plaintiff below, in its supplemental petition, and in the sixth paragraph thereof, specially pleaded that the receipts signed by defendant were executed for a valuable consideration, thus making the issue of consideration one of fact. The defendant pleaded as follows:
“The defendant would further show to the court that on or about the 13th day of November, A. D. 1920, he received from this plaintiff the sum of $11.54; that on the week following he received a like amount, and again on the 27th day of November he received a like amount from the plaintiff herein, and that he received from this plaintiff a total sum of $34.-62 compensation for his injury, and that he has never received any further compensation.”
 We conclude that in effect the defendant pleaded the facts which constituted a failure of consideration, and his pleading, taken in connection with the plaintiff’s pleading, made the question of failure of consideration an issue. The verification of a pleading, when required by statute, may be waived. A plaintiff who makes no objection before trial waives the affidavit required by statute verifying the plea of failure of consideration. Ashcroft v. Stephens, 16 Tex. Civ. App. 341, 40 S. W. 1036, and cases there cited; Williams v. Bailes, 9 Tex. 61; Wilkinson v. Lyon (Tex. Civ. App.) 207 S. W. 638; W. U. Tel. Co. v. Smith, 61 Tex. Civ. App. 531, 130 S. W. 622; Hightower v. Price (Tex. Civ. App.) 244 S. W. 652; Dyer v. Winston, 33 Tex. Civ. App. 412, 77 S. W. 227. In the last-cited case it was held that the sufficiency of an affidavit to a plea cannot be questioned for the first time on appeal. Therefore we conclude that the objection raised must be overruled.
In its motion, appellee refers to our discussion of the failure of plaintiff below to allege any amount involved which would bring the cause within the jurisdiction of the district court. It cites the case of Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Downing (Tex. Civ. App.) 218 S. W. 112, as authority for the plaintiff’s action in filing with the clerk of the district court for jurisdictional purposes' the award of the Industrial Accident Board. In this case, on page 120 of 218 S. W., the Amarillo Court of Civil Appeals says:
“Complaint is made by the eleventh assignment of the introduction by appellee in evidence before the jury of' the final award and ruling of the Industrial Accident Board. By the terms of this award, the Accident Board found that the claimant had been injured; that his injury resulted in total incapacity, and an award of weekly compensation was ordered to be paid until further order of the board.' As we have already seen, the trial, when the case is taken into the courts, is de novo, and -the burden of proof is upon the party claiming compensation. While the petition in such suit should refer to the proceeding before the Industrial Accident Board, in order to show the jurisdiction of the court and it would, perhaps, be necessary to file a certified copy of the award in such proceeding, the question of jurisdiction is for the determination of the court, and the award of the board is immaterial to any issue that is to be tried by the jury, and is no more admissible in evidence before it than the transcript of the judgment on the trial of an appeal before the justice’s court, in which case it is held that it is improper to introduce in evidence before the jury or refer to the findings in the justice’s court. Kelley v. Fain, 168 S. W. 869.”
We do not understand that we are in conflict with the cited cases in what we have said with reference to the necessity of alleging an amount involved coming within the jurisdiction of the court. The court in the last-cited casei had before it the question of whether the award of the Industrial Accident Board was admissible in evidence, and not whether such award should be attached to the pleading as an exhibit, or whether the plaintiff appealing from the award of the Industrial Accident Board should be required to allege an amount involved within the jurisdiction of the trial court.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.