McKenzie v. Beason

On Rehearing.

In obedience to the mandate of the Supreme Court in Railway v. Parker, 135 S. W. 369, we have granted a rehearing herein and permitted the statement of facts to be filed under an order of the district court omitted from the original transcript. In the original opinion filed February 11, 1911, we gave our reasons for affirming the trial court’s ruling on certain demurrers. Perhaps we should now add our reason for sustaining his rulings in certain other respects.

[3] The fifth assignment is overruled because the only statement submitted thereunder is that the court sustained special exceptions 1, 2, 3, and 4 as shown in said assignment of error, to which action of the court in sustaining said exceptions the defendant in open court reserved his exception. This is not the statement contemplated by the rules which would enable this court to pass upon the correctness of the trial court’s ruling. What the exceptions were and what the pleading to which they were directed was nowhere appears from the statement.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth assignments are overruled for the same reason, to wit, the insufficiency of the statement. '

[4] The ninth and tenth assignments, objecting to the rejection of evidence offered by appellant, are overruled because of the reasons above, and, furthermore, because the bills of exception upon which they are predicated fail to show that the objection sustained was not in fact properly sustained. In truth, the objection, to wit, that there was no pleading to support the evidence of res adjudicata, appears to have been well taken, since the plea had been stricken out on exception.

[5] The eleventh assignment is immaterial, since, under the court’s findings, his judgment *248does not depend alone upon limitations. Tlie assignments attacking the trial court’s findings of fact are overruled because of the insufficiency of the statement submitted under them. The brief is replete with such statements as the following: “Statement. See testimony of H. E. Steinmann, original statement of facts, pp. 38 to 44, both inclusive, testimony of J. M. McKinzie, pp. 50 to 58, both inclusive, testimony of Walter McKin-zie, pp. 60 to 62, both inclusive.” The rules requiring a statement from the record are designed to facilitate the appellate courts in the disposition of the particular assignment under consideration. Such'statements as the above do not meet this requirement. They amount to no statement at all, as has been frequently decided in this state. 3 Encyclopedic Digest of Texas Reports, p. 208. We therefore adopt the trial court’s findings of fact as our own.

[6] One other suggestion of appellant, perhaps, deserves to be noticed. It is this: The judgment decrees that the plaintiff is adjudged to be the owner of and to have interest in, and is entitled to, the rights and use of the waters of Santa Rosa creek as against sections Nos. 85, 84, 83, 81, 82, 99, 86, 100, and 101, block 8, H. & G. N. R. R. Co. surveys in Pecos county, Tex., when the owners of said surveys were not parties to the suit. But, if this be true, such decree might not be binding on the owners of those sections and the decree to that extent be void. Nevertheless, we fail to see how this appellant can complain of the matter, or how we can reverse a decree when the only persons affected by it are not parties to the suit and of course have not appealed.

Upon the trial court’s findings of fact adopted as above, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.