Freyre v. Cabassa
Freyre v. Cabassa
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
This was a suit against Rosaura Cabassa in conjunction with her husband Alfredo Bravo González. The complaint alleged that Rosaura Cabassa, in conjunction with her husband, signed four joint and several promissory notes amounting to the sum of $1,000. These four individual notes are duly described in the complaint and copies of the four notes accompanied the same. The defendant, Rosaura • Cabassa, answered and denied having signed any of the notes. In separate paragraphs she denied the signing of each one of the notes.
On February 26, 1914, the district court rendered judgment against the complainant on the ground that none of the
The appellant asks a reversal of this judgment on the ground that the preponderance of the proof was strongly in favor of the complainant. He maintains that not only the appellant swore to the signatures of the defendant but' that also the notary before whom the documents were executed gave evidence tending to show that the affidavits accompanying the documents were signed by Alfredo Bravo and Rosaura Cabassa before such notary. The defendant, on the other hand, absolutely denied her signature. Experts on both sides were presented and a great conflict of proof arose. "We think we should be compelled to affirm this judgment solely on the ground of the conflict of the proof, but there is a special ground for the affirmance of the judgment in this case.
The attorney of the respondents filed no brief but at the hearing he drew the attention of the court to the fact that the judge below in rendering judgment on the ground that the signatures were false, arrived at such conclusion partially by comparison of the signatures of the documents sued on with other documents admitted to be genuine, and that the typewritten copies of such documents which were found in the statement of the ease did not, of course, show the signatures as written. This is substantially an averment that this court in considering the facts cannot be placed in the same position as that held by the trial court. If we were attempting to-weigh the conflict in the statements of the experts we ought to have the signatures before us as written in order to form an estimate of where the truth lies. We are utterly unable to weigh the truth in this case by reason of the lack of the original documents.
We shall not conclude this opinion, however, without drawing attention to the lamentable practice of some of the attorneys of this court in not filing briefs. No matter how simple the case is, or how simple the point, the court needs and de
Because of the conflict in the proof and the failure of the record to bring up all the proof laid before the trial judge, the judgment must be affirmed.
Affirmed.
A motion for reconsideration was made and overruled on July 13, 1914.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.