United States Cold Storage Co. v. Richards

99 S.W.2d 697
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 13, 1936
DocketNo. 13446
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 99 S.W.2d 697 (United States Cold Storage Co. v. Richards) 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
United States Cold Storage Co. v. Richards, 99 S.W.2d 697 (Tex. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinion

BROWN, Justice.

At the outset, we are confronted with a motion on the part of appellee to dismiss the appeal on the ground that appellant’s motion for a new trial was overruled on July 31, 1933, but that the order overruling same was not entered on the minutes of the trial court until August 31, 1935, and, the appeal bond having been filed on August 19, 1935, same was prematurely filed, and cannot support the appeal.

If appellee’s contention is correct, we have no jurisdiction, and the motion to dismiss is well taken.

But we cannot agree with appellee, and feel that the motion must be overruled.

The record discloses that the order of the trial court overruling the motion for a new trial is actually dated July 31, 1935.

It further appears that the district clerk has made a notation oti the margin of the [698]*698court’s order, “Entered August 31, 1935.” •This marginal notation must of necessity-mean that on August 31, 1935, the clerk entered the order in the minutes of the trial court.

We know of no provision of law requiring such an order to be filed by the clerk of the trial court. We know of none requiring the clerk to enter such an order in the minutes at any given time.

We hold that, when the trial judge actually signed the order overruling the motion for a new trial on July 31, 1935, the right to appeal from such accrued to the appellant at such time, and that his rights could not be either affected, or denied, by any failure on the part of the clerk to actually enter the order in the minutes until after he perfected his appeal by filing an appeal bond.

! Common sense and common justice dictate such a conclusion on our part.

1 To hold otherwise makes the right of appeal by a litigant, from an order overruling a motion for a new trial, actually made and signed by the trial court, depend upon the diligence of the clerk in entering •'the order in the minutes before the appeal bond is filed, or upon his honesty of purpose in dealing with such order, in such designated time.

1 It is too evident for argument that, 'should such be the law, either a dishonest clerk or a negligent clerk, or even a clerk ¡whose office is flooded with orders and ¡judgments, and who just happens to enter ;the order in his minutes one day after a proper appeal bond has been filed with ,him, could defeat the litigant’s right of appeal.

I Suppose the clerk had mislaid the order and, upon requesting a transcript, it was disclosed that the order was not in the minutes, could it be successfully contended that it could not be then copied in the minutes and incorporated in the transcript? Common sense and common justice answer “No.”

We even care to go a step further. If, after the transcript were prepared and delivered to appellant and actually filed in this court, he discovered the omission, he could by motion to perfect the record, cause the clerk of the trial court to enter the order in the minutes, furnish him with a certified copy, and bring the same before us to perfect his record and show his right to be heard on appeal.

We are cited to Gilmore v. Ladell (Tex.Civ.App.) 34 S.W.(2d) 919 (writ refused), but in that case it is not made to appear that the trial court signed an order overruling the motion for a new trial on the date the motion was overruled. Furthermore, the appeal was taken on a pauper’s oath, and the oath was not filed within the time provided for in the statute after the order was made in. open court. We have no way of knowing that the Supreme Court considered the conclusions reached by the Court of Civil Appeals save the one which points out the lack of jurisdiction of the appeal because the pauper’s oath was not filed within twenty days after the motion for new trial was actually overruled. We are of opinion that this feature of the case moved the Supreme Court to deny the writ.

Suffice it to say, we decline to follow the opinion which deals with the issue of want of jurisdiction because the appeal bond was filed before the clerk actually copied the order overruling the motion for a new trial in the minutes. We do not believe that such pronouncement in the Gilmore Case, supra, is the law, and we so hold.

It follows that the motion to strike appellant’s assignments of error is not well taken.

This suit was brought by appellee, Richards, against appellant, United States Cold Storage Company, a private corporation, and Leftwich Marketing Company, a private corporation, to recover judgment jointly and severally against both corporations for the breach of an alleged oral contract to purchase and pay for 10,000 crates of onions at $1 per bushel crate.

The allegations assert that 75 cents per bushel was agreed to be paid upon delivery and the remaining 25 cents later on; that 5,000 bushels were actually delivered and only 75 cents per bushel paid, and recovery is sought for the unpaid 25 cents per bushel. They further assert that appellant refused to take the remaining 5,000 bushels of onions; that appellee was forced to sell same at 60 cents per crate, and he prays for recovery for 40 cents per crate loss as well as $491.40 storage charges alleged to have been incurred.

Leftwich Marketing Company made no answer, and appellant answered, among other contentions, that it made no such contract; that no person authorized to do so made any such contract for it; that it had a written contract with Leftwich [699]*699Marketing- Company whereby it undertook to store onions purchased by such marketing company and to advance for said company 75 cents per bushel on purchases made b3r it and stored with appellant, under certain conditions whereby appellant was to be secured for the making of such advancements ; that the debt arising out of the transaction with appellee Richards was the Marketing Company’s debt, and, if any attempt were made to bind it to pay such debt, the transaction, not being in writing, was unenforceable as being within the statute of frauds.

Appellee replied that the contract to purchase “was made by one C. L. Moss, an agent and employee of the United States Cold Storage Company who was at the time acting in the course of his employment”; and further that, if Moss did not have the actual authority to make the contract, he was the manager of appellant’s Dallas branch, and as such “was placed in a position where the ordinary business man of prudence would assume that he had the actual authority to make such contracts as were necessary for the purpose of carrying on and transacting business that might come to him in behalf of his principal,” and that appellant is es-topped to assert that Moss had no such authority; that appellant, through Moss, had made similar contracts with other persons; that appellant accepted the benefits of the contract made by Moss and has ratified his actual or apparent authority.

The cause was tried to a jury and four special issues submitted: (1) Did appellant and Leftwich Marketing Company jointly agree to purchase from appellee 10,000 crates of onions at $1 per crate? Answer “Yes.” (2) “Do you find and believe from a preponderance of the evidence that C. L.

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99 S.W.2d 697, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-cold-storage-co-v-richards-texapp-1936.