Court Opinion

ID: 9761974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:04:07.308806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:28.565427
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING OF MOTION TO EXTEND TIME FOR FILING STATEMENT OF FACTS
Our opinion filed February 21,1975, relative to extension of time within which to file statement of facts in this case, is withdrawn with the following substituted therefor:
The motion under scrutiny is labeled “Motion to Extend Time for Filing Statement of Facts”. Immediately, it would appear, the duty of this Appellate Court would be to test its sufficiency under the provisions of T.R.C.P. 386, “Time to File Transcript and Statement of Facts”, or, this being a case in quo warranto, T.R.C.P. 384, “Appeal in Quo Warranto Proceedings”.
Under Rule 386 this Court recently had occasion to examine the state of the law relative to what is necessary if one might be found by a Court of Civil Appeals to be entitled to an extension of time provided by the Rule; and, furthermore, the occasions when the Court of Civil Appeals would not be entitled to make any fact finding upon the existence of good cause for delay because of failure to raise fact issues thereupon, but would be committing reversible error by granting extensions of time within which to file some part of the appellate record. See opinion of this Court in Home Fund, Inc. v. Garland, 520 S.W.2d 939 delivered February 21, 1975. There would be like application of Rule 384.
If Rule 384 or Rule 386 applied in the instant case there would be an absence of entitlement to grant any extension of time to file the instrament denominated “Statement of Facts” because of the failure to raise a fact issue upon which we would be privileged to find good cause for delay. By the examination of the record as exhibited by the Transcript, which was timely filed, we have concluded that what appellant desires to have admitted is something other than the Statement of Facts contemplated by Rules 384 and 386.
T.R.C.P. 378, “Agreed Statement”, provides that where the parties have agreed upon a statement of the facts proved in the trial court, etc., it shall be copied into the Transcript in lieu of the proceedings (as a substitute for Statement of Facts). We have found in the Transcript an instrument denominated “Stipulation of Facts”, reduced to writing and signed by the parties as contemplated by Rule 378.
In view of the “Stipulation of Facts” embodied in the Transcript the appellant had actually timely filed the Statement of Facts contemplated by Rules 384 and 886.
Thus it is not the Statement of Facts contemplated by Rules 384 and 386 that is the subject of the motion of appellant but a “Supplement” to the Statement of Facts already on file.
T.R.C.P. 428, “Amendment: Record” is the Rule which has application under these circumstances. Thereunder is provided that if anything material to either party is omitted from the Transcript or Statement of Facts, the parties by stipulation, or the trial court or the appellate court, may direct a supplemental record to be certified and transmitted supplying such omitted matter.
*625Application of Rule 428 is especially apparent when it is observed that the instrument which appellant desires leave to file consists solely of exhibits. References to these exhibits are made in the parties’ “Stipulation of Facts” which amounts to the Statement of Facts contemplated by Rules 384 and 386.
Thus, as applied to supplementation of the record already existent, i. e. the Statement of Facts already on file, a Court of Civil Appeals is at liberty to permit the instrument to be filed without concern to the question of good cause (at least the good cause contemplated by Rules 384 and 386).
Since we consider the exhibits material we grant appellant’s motion and direct the clerk to file the instrument desired to be filed as the Supplemental Statement of Facts under authority of Rule 428.