Housing Authority of Dallas v. Brown

256 S.W.2d 656, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2275
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 13, 1953
DocketNo. 14615
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 256 S.W.2d 656 (Housing Authority of Dallas v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Housing Authority of Dallas v. Brown, 256 S.W.2d 656, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2275 (Tex. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

■CRAMER, Justice.

This is a condemnation proceeding. Appellant Housing Authority sought the whole of appellees’ property. The issues were tried to a jury who-found the value of the real estate (house and lots) in question to be $3,750. The Housing Authority has appealed ■ from that judgment, assigning six points of error.

The first point asserts the damages found by the jury to be excessive; countered that the amount found by the jury was based on substantial evidence of probative value. The point, necessitates a review of the evidence. The property in question consistéd of'two lots, each 55 x 217 ft., with a six-room house thereon, at the intersection of Vacek and Pointer Road in Dallas County. Six expert witnesses testified as to vahie, — three for appellees as follows: $6,100, $6,125, and $5,368.75; three for appellant, $2,675, $2,550; and $2,200, Two witnesses testified as to the value of the lots only, appellees’ witness testifying the value’ was $2,000; appellant’s witness, $875. The jury’s verdict, when considering the above, as well as the evidence as a whole, was not so against the great weight of the evidence as to justify this Court in either reversing the case or ordering a re-mittitur.

Point 1 is overruled.

Point 2 asserts error in the allowance of interest from August 10, 1951, date of the Commissioners’ award. Interest should have been allowed on the increased amount of the award by the trial court, to begin on the date condemnor took posses1' sion of the property. Point 2 is therefore sustained, and the amount of interest allowed should be' reformed so as to conform to the abóve holding. See Housing Authority of City of Dallas v. Shambry, Tex.Civ.App., 252 S.W.2d 963.

Point 3 complains óf the court’s failure to strike evidence introduced by appellee wherein ’she testified that the lots and the house involved here cost $3,500. Appellees move to strike this point, as well as points 4, 5, and 6, asserting they were not properly [658]*658raised in motion for new trial and therefore not before this Court. The record shows without dispute that the trial term of the case in the court below began February 4, 1952 and ended April 5, 1952. The court’s charge in this case was filed February 26, 1952; judgment was signed and entered March 5, 1952; appellant’s original motion for new trial was filed March 6 and did not contain assignments covering the errors complained of in points 3, 4, 5, and 6. The amended motion for new trial was filed April 5, 1952 without leave of court. The order overruling motion. for new trial (omitting formal parts) recites:

“On this the 5th day of April 1952, at 11:45 A.M. the last day of the February-March term of this Court, came on to be heard the plaintiff’s motion for.a new trial filed in this Court on March 6, 1952, and no request ever having been made to the Court either by the plaintiff or defendant for a formal hearing of this matter, and the Court by reason of it being the last day and the last hour of its term of Court does hereby upon its own initiative and for the record overrule the plaintiff’s original motion for a new trial filed March 6, 1952, and the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas, plaintiff, having indicated that they desired to appeal the matter previous hereto does for the record make note that they duly excepted to the Court’s ruling and gave notice of appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fifth Supreme Judicial District of Texas sitting in Dallas.
“For the record in this cause let it further be shown that on April 5, 1952 at 10:40 A.M., while the Judge was in attendance at a Bar Association meeting an amended motion for a new trial was filed by the plaintiff’s attorney at 10:40 A.M., with an order overruling the same for the Court to sign and word left with the clerk of this Court that no formal hearing was requested and that the court merely overrule the plaintiff’s amended motion for a new trial and the plaintiff Housing Authority gave notice of appeal.
“The Court considers the amended motion for a new trial filed too late for any action upon the part of this court and it is unwilling to arbitrarily overrule the alleged grounds, 15 grounds set forth therein without a hearing upon the matter and without having any independent recollection of the various evidentiary matters alleged by the plaintiff to have occurred. The court communicated with the defendant’s attorney Mike McKool and was informed that it would be impossible for him to appear in 'Court without any notice having been given him of the plaintiff’s amended motion for a new trial or the setting at this late date within an hour and a half of the adjournment of this Court for the term of this Court for a hearing on plaintiff's amended motion for a new trial and therefore the Court considers said plaintiff’s motion for a new trial as not filed within time and in accordance with the rules of procedure and hence does not consider or act upon the same for any purpose in view of the fact that this trial was had upon February 27, 1952, and the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial was filed on March 6, 1952, and no setting requested at any time, which the Court would gladly have given and the amended motion for a new trial filed by the plaintiff on April 5, 1952 is considered to be tardily filed and although the file stamp is marked thereon the Court in its discretion feels that the same is filed too late to be acted upon and orders and directs that the same not be considered as duly filed in accordance with law, nor acted upon in any manner by this Court.
“Signed and entered at Dallas, Texas, this the 5th day of April, 1952, at 12:00 O’Clock, Noon. . /s/ Glenn Polk, Judge.”

Rule 320, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, provides in substance that the motion must be filed within two days after the rendition of the judgment and may be amended under leave of the court and be determined at the term of the court at which it is made. The question here has not been directly passed upon under the above Rule. However in W. C. Turnbow Petroleum Co. v. Fulton, 145 Tex. 56, 194 S.W.2d 256, our Supreme Court held that where the motion and amended motion were each timely filed and the trial court timely acted thereon and overruled the motions, the effect of the order was to determine that the movant [659]*659was entitled to file the amended motion. In Combined American Ins. Co. v. Morgan, Tex.Civ.App., 214 S.W.2d 145, 149, the El Paso Court of Civil Appeals held that “Error may not be assigned on an amended motion for a new trial upon which the trial court has never ruled unless it appears that leave to file same was granted by the trial court. * * * ” Under the state of the authorities, leave not having been granted under Rule 320, we must look to appellant’s assertion that the refusal to grant such leave was an abuse of discretion. The record contains an affidavit of the Court Reporter (omitting formal parts) as follows:

“I am Valerie Lacey, the Court Reporter in County Court at Law No. Two. I was the Court Reporter and took down the Statement of Facts in the case of The Housing Authority of the City of Dallas, Texas v. Mary E. Brown, No. 95696. The Statement of Facts in this case was ordered by Mr.

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256 S.W.2d 656, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2275, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/housing-authority-of-dallas-v-brown-texapp-1953.