Court Opinion

ID: 9830850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:34:00.978062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:27.698312
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee in her motion for rehearing for the first time challenges the jurisdiction, both of the district court and of this court, to hear and determine this case. She invokes the provisions of article 3634, Vernon’s Sayles’ Texas Civil Statutes, which is as follows:
“Where the party who desires to appeal is unable to give the appeal bond, it shall be sufficient if he file with the county clerk, within the time prescribed for giving such bond, an affidavit in writing that he has made diligent effort to give such bond and is unable to do so by reason of his poverty, and such affidavit shall operate a perfection of the appeal in respect to the matter of costs.”
The appellant, Mrs. Mattie Clark, within 15 days from the rendition of judgment in the county court, filed an affidavit for herself and her cocontestant Mrs. J. D. Irby, stating, in part:
“The said Mrs. Mattie Clark and Mrs. J. D. Trby, contestants, desire to prosecute an appeal from the judgment as rendered in the county court of Parker county, Tex., to the honorable district court of Parker • county, Tex., same being the Forty-Third judicial district of Texas, and that they, the said Mrs. Mattie Clark and Mrs. J. D. Irby, are unable to pay the costs of such appeal, or any part thereof, or to give security therefor.”
That affidavit was made before the judge of the county court of Parker county, and the record contains an order of that court, reciting:
That the application of Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Irby for leave to prosecute their appeal to the distinct court without giving a bond for costs and upon the affidavit above mentioned was heard by the court in regular session; that at that hearing Mrs. Clark and the proponents, together with their attorneys, all appeared; that “issue on said application of inability to make an appeal bond by contestants was joined, and the court, after hearing the evidence in support thereof, and the argument of counsel, is of the opinion that said application is sustained by the proof, and that said contestants, Mrs. Mattie Clark and Mrs. J. D. Irby, are unable to make an appeal bond, or give security therefor on an appeal to the district court of Parker county, Tex. ; it is therefore, ordered and adjudged by this court that the contestants, Mrs. Mattie Clark and Mrs. J. D. Irby, may appeal, without bond, from the judgment rendered in this cause in this court to the honorable district court of Parker county, Tex., same being the Forty-Third judicial district of Texas, and the clerk of this court is directed to make up a proper transcript and record of the proceedings had in this court, and, together with the will and other record papers send to the clerk of the honorable district court of Parker county, Tex.”
The sufficiency of the affidavit above mentioned was not questioned in the district court nor upon original hearing in this court, but now for the first time upon a motion for rehearing appellee says that the affidavit referred to above was insufficient to give the district court or this court jurisdiction because: (1) It fails to state that Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Irby had made diligent effort to give an appeal bond, and were unable to do so by reason of their poverty; and (2) because the affidavit was not signed by Mrs. Irby as well as by Mrs. Clark.
As noted already, the court heard proof upon the matters stated in the application. Just what proof he heard in addition to the affidavit does not appear, and the contention of appellee now is based alone upon the insufficiency of the affidavit. In Stewart v. Heidenheimer, 55 Tex. 644, it was held that the omission from an affidavit of inability to pay the costs of court “or any part thereof,” as required by the statute, was no valid objection to the affidavit. In that opinion it was further held that a contest of the affidavit filed after the expiration of the time allowed by law for perfecting an appeal came too late. In Morrison v. Brooks, 189 S. W. 1094, it was held that such an affidavit was not invalid because made by only one of the two appellants in the case. In Cason v. Connor, 83 Tex. 26, 18 S. W. 668, which was an appeal from the district court of a case originating in .the justice court, the following was said in reversing and remanding the cause:
“It is first assigned as error that the court below should have dismissed the appeal of the intervener T. C. Connor from the judgment of *428the justice court because Ms appeal bond was not made payable to J. L. Westfall, as well as to the appellants, and because, as it is claimed, the judgment of the last-named court was not final. How the district court could reasonably be expected to have taken such action we are unable to perceive, since no such issue or question, by motion or otherwise, was raised in that tribunal. In view of another trial, we may say that the motion to dismiss, should one hereafter be filed, would come too late after the parties have all voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction of the district court.”
To the same effect are Cason, v. Laney, 82 Tex. 317, 18 S. W. 667, Saylor v. Marx, 56 Tex. 90, Zapp v. Michaelis, 56 Tex. 395, and Tynberg v. Cohen, 76 Tex. 409, 13 S. W. 315. All of which authorities settle the question beyond controversy, as we think, that the grounds of objections now urged to the affidavit were waived, even though it could be said that the failure to include in the affidavit the additional statement that Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Irby had made diligent effort to give a bond and were unable to do so by reason of their poverty rendered the affidavit defective. We are of the opinion, further, that appellee is precluded from raising those objections by reason of the fact that the sufficiency of the affidavit and the proof heard in support thereof were adjudicated by the county court upon issue joined by appellee, and not even an exception was reserved in that court by appellee to the order so made in any manner questioning the sufficiency of such affidavit and proof; to say nothing of her failure to raise such questions in the district court or in this court upon original hearing.
For the reasons indicated the contention of appellee that the district court and this court were without jurisdiction cannot be sustained. Other grounds of the motion for rehearing have been duly considered, and as the questions therein presented have already been discussed in our original opinion, they are overruled,, without further discussion, as we think they are sufficiently disposed of adversely to appellee in that opinion. Accordingly the motion for rehearing is in all respects overruled.