Court Opinion

ID: 9645097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:12:41.227652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:23.076809
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Motion for Rehearing
GRAY, Justice.
In their motion for rehearing appellants say that the majority committed fundamental error in affirming the judgment of the trial court because: it is apparent from the record that the Southside application, though filed subsequent to appellants’ application, was first presented and decided for which reason they were denied due process of law before the Board. They also in effect say that the majority erred in permitting the Board to violate its own rule, and that because their application was first filed it was entitled to be first decided because “Where the equities are equal, the first in time shall prevail.”
Our majority opinion quotes' from the minutes of the meetings of the Board and also the pertinent provisions of the applicable rule. These show that appellants’ application was first presented and was first heard at the October, 1959 meeting. A decision on the applications was not had at that meeting for which reason the decision was necessarily deferred. The rule of the Board was in all respects followed at that meeting. The rule provides for first presentment and not for a first decision. The last statement is important here in view of the subsequent showings of the minutes.
The minutes of the November 10 meeting show that the hearing on both applications was postponed on the request of appellants. It must be noticed that the postponements were at the request of appellants and not at the request of the South-side group. Although it is not shown to have been before the Board at the meeting on November 25 1 the minutes of the De*517cember 3 meeting show that appellants presented matters which in the opinion of the Board required a further postponement of the hearing on their application.
Even if we agree with appellants that their first filing created equities in their favor we do not agree that the Board must stay its decision of a second application so long as appellants elected to secure postponements of the hearing on their own application. This would be an unreasonable hindrance to procedure by the Board. It is the opinion of the majority that any equities originally existing in favor of appellants because of their first filing was lost due to their own acts; that due process was not denied to appellants, and that the action of the Board did not violate its own rule.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
Motion overruled.
HUGHES, Justice
(dissenting).
For the Court to rely so heavily on the first presentation of an application for a bank charter is to prefer form to substance. The spirit of the rule of the Board requiring applications to be presented in the order of their filing certainly embraces decision in the same order; otherwise the semblance of fairness in the rule is utter farce.
Besides, while the Court states that the record shows the Stella Link application to have been first presented, appellees, themselves, do not state the matter so strongly. They say the record reveals “that both applications were presented to the Board at substantially the same time.”
The Court now suggests that appellants have in some manner lost their priority by requesting that Board action on both applications be postponed for one month.
The ground for requesting such delay is not shown. Nor is it shown that appel-lees objected to such request.
That waiver could be thus accomplished is beyond my capacity to comprehend.
In fairness to appellees, it should be stated that they do not advance this reason for sustaining the action of the Board.
I respectfully dissent.

. At which time the Southside application was granted which was before December 3, to which time appellants bad requested postponements.