Lanier v. Perryman

59 Tex. 104, 1883 Tex. LEXIS 115
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 9, 1883
DocketCase No. 1269
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 59 Tex. 104 (Lanier v. Perryman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lanier v. Perryman, 59 Tex. 104, 1883 Tex. LEXIS 115 (Tex. 1883).

Opinion

West, Associate Justice.—

There was in this case an order, entered during the term, authorizing the statement of facts to be filed within ten days after the adjournment of court. This event occurred on the 10th of April, 1880. The statement of facts was not filed until the 23d of April, 1880. The order entered below, being thus disregarded in this respect, this statement contained in the record will not be examined by this court. McGuire v. Newbill, 58 Tex., 314; Ross v. McGowan, 58 Tex., 603; R. S., art. 1379. In the absence of such a statement, this court cannot in this case determine whether the district judge ruled correctly or not in reference to the different points raised in the bill of exceptions on file. Tarlton v. Daily, 55 Tex., 92; Hutchins v. Wade, 20 Tex., 7; McMahon v. Rice, 16 Tex., 335; Lewis v. Black, 16 Tex., 652; McCarty v. Wood, 42 Tex., 39; Fulshear v. Randon, 18 Tex., 275; Cottrell v. Teagarden, 25 Tex., 317; May v. Ferrill, 22 Tex., 340.

For the same reason the action of the court in refusing certain instructions asked by appellant cannot now be re-examined. Bast v. Alford, 22 Tex., 399; Pfeuffer v. Maltby, 54 Tex., 454; Armstrong v. Lipscomb, 11 Tex., 649; Cannovan v. Thompson, 12 Tex., 247.

Nor can the alleged errors that are claimed to exist in the main chai’ge of the court be now examined. Smith v. Tucker, 25 Tex., 594; Frost v. Frost, 45 Tex., 325.

There being, then, no matter in the record properly presented, so that it can-be here inquired into, the judgment of the court below must necessarily be affirmed; and this would properly conclude the case, but, owing to the nature of the suit brought, we deem it proper to add something more.

■ This is an action of trespass to try title, instituted before the enactment of the Eevised Statutes, and is therefore a case in which the appellant has the right to bring a second action. R. S., art. 4811; [108]*108Hall v. Woofers, 54 Tex., 231. For this reason we cleem it proper, without intending to make an authoritative and final disposition of any of the questions, to call attention to some of the matters in reference to the case disclosed by the present record, with a view to facilitate its more speedy disposition in the event of a second trial.

The trial was had after the Eevised Statutes were in force. It appears that the counsel disagreed as to what should be contained in the statement of facts. On the last day of the term, the court entered an order extending the time for filing the statement of facts to the utmost limit allowed by the statute. R. S., art. 1379. On the 19th of April, 1880, the presiding judge seems' to have completed the preparation of the statement of facts, which it became his duty to prepare when the counsel were unable to agree. R. S., art. 1378. This, instead of being filed on that day or the two next succeeding days, did not reach the clerk’s hands until the 23d day of April. Whether this delay was caused by the action of the judge, who until nearly the last moment still had the statement of facts in his possession, or resulted from the negligence of counsel or of the clerk, or from some accident or inadvertence, we cannot determine. The judge also refused to sign the bills of exceptions prepared and tendered him in time by the counsel for the appellant, on the ground that they were not correct.

This refusal of the court is called to our special attention, and is made the ground of the ninth assignment of errors, as follows: “ The court erred in refusing to give a bill of exceptions during the trial of said cause, and in failing at the time to make a proper memorandum thereof, and in afterwards refusing to sign the bill of exceptions prepared by plaintiff’s counsel, and in giving a bill of exceptions which does not show the ruling of the court upon all the questions ruled upon by the court adversely to the plaintiff.”

On the last day of the term the judge signed and filed a bill of exceptions setting forth the matters excepted to correctly, according to his recollection on the subject. Whether the original bills of exceptions prepared by appellant’s counsel were submitted by the judge to the adverse party, or his counsel, or Avhether the supposed errors in the original bills were pointed out by the judge to the counsel who drew them, with a view to their correction; the record is silent. R. S., art. 1364; Firebaugh v. Ward, 51 Tex., 409; Houston v. Jones, 4 Tex., 170. The record is also silent as to whether the judge indorsed thereon his refusal to sign the original bills of exception presented to him (R. S., art. 1366), and returned them, as [109]*109the law required him to do, to the counsel having the preparation of the bills of exception in charge.

• We are inclined to the opinion that such rejected bills, so indorsed, would constitute, for some purposes,- a part of the record, if filed promptly during term time by the counsel to whom they were returned by the judge. The bill of exceptions as filed by the judge seems to be somewhat imperfect and incomplete in reference to the admission of the evidence of the witnesses Hardin and Davis, in failing to show upon what ground their evidence was objected tol We must presume, however, from this bill that the counsel below objected to the evidence without stating any ground of objection whatever, if this presumption in favor of the bill of exceptions can be indulged in the absence of the appellant’s rejected bill.

The bill also shows that appellant offered in evidence a copy of a deed from the appellee B. M. Perryman and wife to Joseph Bichard» son, dated in 1873, and that the appellee objected to its introduction. The precise ground of the objection made by appellee is not stated, but the judge gives in the bill the reasons why he excluded it. The bill of exceptions does not clearly Show that the appellee urged any of these objections to it when it was offered in evidence. The genuineness of the original of this copy appears to have been admitted by the maker, and either he or his co-appellee, Mrs. Bichardson, were charged in law with its custody. The fact, at all events, that such an original deed did at one time exist, and that a correct copy of it had been taken by some one, whether it was duly recorded and acknowledged or not, would seem to be in itself a fact proper to go to the jury, for what it was worth, on the issue of fraud and collusion between the Perrymans and Eichardson, as to the true date of the deed substituted by the judgment of the court, which was claimed to be dated 1st of August, 1874.

The rejected statement of facts, which is signed by the judge and certified as correct, discloses that on the trial the appellant, in fact, made quite a number of other objections to the introduction of evidence, which were apparently overruled by the court, and which do not appear in the bill of exceptions prepared by the judge. Whether all of these objections were afterwards waived by appellant and ■purposely omitted from his rejected bill of exceptions, or were all in fact contained in that bill, we are unable to say with certainty.

• The introduction ifi evidence of the judgment of March 19, 1878, purporting to substitute the alleged lost deed of August 1, 1874, -from R. M. Perryman to Joseph Eichardson, appears to have been ' objected to. The ground of objection is not given in the statement [110]

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Bluebook (online)
59 Tex. 104, 1883 Tex. LEXIS 115, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lanier-v-perryman-tex-1883.