Court Opinion

ID: 9831593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:14:03.917469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.299390
License: Public Domain

On Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing and to Certify.
Appellant urgently argues that we were wrong in our conclusion on original hearing, and under article 2253, 1925 Revision, that one who desires to appeal from a judgment of the trial court, which may not by law continue more than 8 weeks, a nonresident appellant has not 30 days after the expiration of the term in which to file his appeal bond. On the motion to certify, he urges that, inasmuch as this is a boundary suit, and the Supreme Court may not have jurisdiction to entertain an appeal, and inasmuch as the decision heretofore rendered by us involves the construction of a statute, and inasmuch as the trial court rendered judgment upon an instructed verdict, the appellant has not had his day in court, and that an irreparable damage will be done him if in fact we were wrong in our former holding.
We have carefully considered appellant’s motion for rehearing, and still are of the opinion that the appeal should be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The Fortieth Legislature (chapter 15) amended article 2253 to read as follows:
“An appeal may, in cases where an appeal is allowed, be taken during the term of the court at which the final judgment in the cause is rendered by the appellant giving notice of appeal in open court within two days after final judgment, or two days after judgment overruling a motion for a new trial, which shall be noted on the docket and entered of record, and by his filing with the clerk an appeal bond, where bond is required by law, or affidavit in lieu thereof, as hereinafter provided, within twenty days after the expiration of the term. If the term of court may by law continue more than eight weeks, the bond or affidavit in lieu thereof shall be filed within twenty days after notice of appeal is given, if the party taking the appeal resides in the county, and within thirty days, if he resides out of the county.” -
The emergency clause reads:
“The fact that said article 2253 of the Revised Statutes of 1925 is incorrectly worded, and the importance of the subject creat.es an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days be suspended, and said rule is hereby suspended, and that this act take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.”
The act was approved on February 11, 1927, and became effective on the same day. The amended act is plain and unambiguous, and construes the 1925 article against appellant’s contention, and as held by us in our former opinion. This last act is merely a *312declaratory statute, declaring what the meaning of the 1925 article now is and'always has been.
3 Bouv. Law Diet. p. 3130, says:
“A declaratory statute" is one which is passed in order to put end to a doubt as to what is the common law or the meaning of another statute, and which declares what it is and ever has been.”
See 25 R. C. L. p. 1064, § 288; 36 Cyc. p. 1142.
Since Burr' v. Lewis, 6 Tex. 76, decided in 1851, the appellant, where the term of court continued- by law for less than 8 weeks, has been allowed 20 days only after the expiration of the term within which to file his bond, regardless of whether he lived in or outside of the county.' Hence article 2253, R. S. 1925, should be given a strict construction in order to conform with the" previous long-existing legislative policy, and the policy reiterated in the article as amended by the Acts of the Fortieth Legislature. Hence we conclude that we -were correct in our former holding.
We do not see that any such doubt of the correctness of our former decision exists as would justify a certification. Therefore both motions are overruled.