Emery v. Barfield
Emery v. Barfield
Opinion of the Court
For the second time appellants present to this court for revision an adverse judgment in a suit against them by appellees F. H. Barfield and others, who are the children and children-in-law of Susan Sullivan and J. M. Sullivan, deceased, to recover the alleged undivided community interest of their father, J. M. Sullivan, in a part of the Samuel Andrews survey situated in Jones county. See 138 S. W. 419. On the former appeal the judgment was reversed because of an erroneous charge. The issue upon which the case turns is whether at the date of the death of J. M. Sullivan the land in controversy was community property or the separate property of Susan Sullivan, the surviving wife under whom appellants claim. The trial now presented for review was before the court without a jury, and the plaintiffs again secured a. judgment in their favor, from which this appeal is prosecuted.
There is further evidence showing later conveyances from Susan Sullivan to her son, S. E. Emery, one of the appellants herein, upon the consideration of caring for her during the remainder of her life, and from S. E. Emery conveying 100 acres to the appellant W. L. Grogan; but, as the particulars relating to these conveyances are not deemed pertinent to the present inquiry they need not be further noticed.
Susan Sullivan at the time of the trial was about 88 years of age, and the only substantial controversy in the evidence is whether the $75- paid to R. H. Parker for his conveyance on March 29, 1892, was of the separate estate of Susan Sullivan. On the last trial she testified on this subject: “I gave him (J. M. Sullivan) the money to redeem the land. I gave him 85 or 87 dollars, somewhere. The money that I gave him at that time I got from my father, Samuel Andrews. * * * I have got some of that original money now that I got from my father’s estate. It is gold. I have got a right smart of it now. I came from Karnes county up here on the Clear Fork. My father did not live in Karnes county. He lived in De Witt county. There is where he died. My recollection is that it must have been something like three or four years before my husband’s death that I gave him that 85 or 87 dollars. He came to town right straight the day I gave him the money. I guess he came. He said he did. That $85 was a part of the original money that I got from my father’s estate.” The plaintiffs however, introduced Susan Sullivan’s testimony upon a former trial, which on the same subject is as-follows: “The money I let Mr. Sullivan have was to redeem the property from taxes. I thought I told you when that was. I could not say positively when that was. I do not know anything about anybody going there and selling the land. I never saw anybody come in there and sell the land that I know of. Nobody ever told me that the sheriff sold the land. It never was that I know of. I have no recollection of it. I gave him that money, of course, to recover the land. I got that money from my father. It came from my father. I had stock and I had money. I always have money and I always did have it. I had stock and horses, of course, wasn’t that something coming to me? I had the money and I always had it, I told you. That came off of the place- there and I had money besides. Just so I had it, that is sufficient. It came from the increase of the stock my father gave me.” There -was also testimony by the children plaintiffs to the effect that, if their mother had on hand at the time of the sale of the land to Parker any original, money received from her father, they had no knowledge of it, and that continuously for a number of years after their father’s death their mother, Susan Sullivan, frequently referred to and acknowledged their interest in the land in controversy. This, however, was denied by Mrs. Sullivan. The foregoing presents all of the evidence deemed necessary to present, and substantially all relating to, the question under consideration, unless perhaps reference should be made to the fact that there was some testimony tending to show that J. M. Sullivan had become insolvent before the date of the Parker judgment.
Under this state of facts, as before stated, the majority think the judgment must be reversed; their viéw being presented in the language of Mr. Justice SPEER as follows:
*313 “It is conceded, as indeed it must be under the authorities, that an error has been committed by the trial judge which ordinarily would require a reversal of the judgment. We refer to the failure of the trial judge to file his findings of fact after having been duly requested to do so by the appellants.
Prom the view so presented the writer respectfully dissents. Several of the decisions indicate that in no ease where there is a full statement of facts will the judgment be reversed merely because of the failure of the trial judge to file his conclusions of fact and law as requested. See Sullivan v. Fant, 51 Tex. Civ., App. 6, 110 S. W. 521, in which writ of error was refused (114 S. W. xiii); Haywood v. Scarborough, 102 S. W. 470; City Nat. Bank of F. W. v. Stout, 61 Tex. 567. In other cases the rule is not stated so broadly. In Huffman Imp. Co. v. Templeton, 14 S. W. 1015, there was a failure of the trial judge to file his conclusions of fact and law, demand therefor having been made in due time, and the court said: “It is not always that the failure of the judge to perform this duty will be ground for reversing the judgment, and we do not think it constitutes ground for reversal in this instance. There is a full statement of facts in the record and it does not appear that appellant has been injured or could be injured by reason of the nonperformance of such duty by the judge.” To the same effect is the decision in the ease of Crocker v. Crocker, 19 Tex. Civ. App. 296, 46 S. W. 870, and Umscheid v. Scholz, 84 Tex. 265, 16 S. W. 1065, and Sutherland v. Kirkland, 134 S. W. 851. A still later case, viz., Shepherd & Davenport v. McEvoy, 144 S. W. 285, is to the same effect, though .perhaps apparently placing the burden upon the appellee to show that the failure of the trial judge to file his conclusions was without prejudice. Amended rule 62a by our Supreme Court, published since the opinion last .cited (149 S. W. x) provides, among other things, that: “No judgment shall be reversed on appeal and a new trial ordered in any cause on the ground that the trial court has committed an error of law in the course of the trial, unless the appellate court shall be of opinion that the error complained of amounted to such a denial of the rights of the appellant as was reasonably calculated to cause and probably did cause the rendition of an improper judgment in the case, or was such as probably prevented the appellant from making a proper presentation of the case to the appellate court,” etc. It is also expressly declared by a statute having direct reference to Courts of Civil Appeals, that there shall be “no reversal on appeal or writ of error *. * * for want of form, providing sufficient matter or substance be contained in the record to enable the court to decide the cause upon its merits.” It seems ■perfectly clear to the mind of the writer that the trend of all of these decisions and provisions, as well as of modem thought, is undoubtedly against reversals where it is plainly apparent that the error complained of could have been of no material injury to the complaining party. The writer has been unable to see, after most careful consideration, in what respects the failure of the trial judge now complained of has in any way prevented appellants from a proper presentation of their case here or in any other way operated to their prejudice. As stated, we have before us a complete statement of facts. It is duly certified by the official reporter of the district to be “a full, • true and correct transcript of all the testimony which was admitted in evidence by the court upon the trial of the case.” It is so agreed to by counsel for both appellants and appellees and so duly approved by the trial court. And in appellants’ brief relating to the merits, error is assigned to the judgment of the court as “wholly contrary to the law and the evidence and not supported hy law or evidence” upon the grounds: First, that “Susan Sullivan acquired the land in controversy b'y inheritance from her father which constituted it her separate property, and that she acquired whatever interest J. M. Sullivan might have had in said lands by deed of said J. M. Sullivan dated December 10, 1891, * * * which constituted said lands the separate .property of the said Susan Sullivan, and plaintiffs, being heirs of J. M. Sullivan, deceased, are not entitled to recover any of said lands by inheritance from said J. M. Sullivan.” Second, “that the deed from R. H. Parker to defendant Susan Sullivan dated March 29, 1892, made and delivered by said Parker to said Susan Sullivan under the direction of her husband, J. M. Sullivan, now deceased, was a gift from said J. M. Sullivan to his wife, Susan Sullivan, of whatever interest J. M. Sullivan had in said lands and constituted said lands the separate property of the said Susan Sullivan as against plaintiffs who are heirs of the said J. M. Sullivan.”
To these contentions it is in substance replied that neither the deed of December 10, 1891, nor of March 29, 1892, to Mrs. Sullivan recited that the land was conveyed to her separate use and that the evidence was at least of conflicting tendency on the issue of J. M. Sullivan’s intent or purpose in making the one deed to Mrs. Sullivan and in directing (if he did so) the other to be made to her by Parker.
But the force of these conflicting contentions need not now be discussed. Whatever view may be taken of the evidence relating to the merits of the case, it is not perceived how appellants could more certainly invoke our revisory power. As it seems to the writer no issue of either law or fact is raised by the statement of facts in this case that could have been decided by the trial judge that may not be now passed upon under the statement of facts and assignments of error before us, and while it is doubtless true that conclusions filed without the ten days provided by the statute would not be considered, *315 possibly even in tbe absence of a motion to strike tbe same from tbe record, yet it seems significant that appellants have not exhibited in the transcript tbe conclusions of fact and law actually filed by tbe court so as to at least illustrate some possible way, if any, in which tbe judge’s failure operates to their prejudice. As before stated, this suit was instituted in April, 1909, and has been twice prosecuted to a favorable conclusion in tbe trial court by appellees, and in tbe judgment of tbe writer without further discussion we ought now to disregard tbe mere technical error discussed and proceed to a determination of tbe merits. Tbe conclusion of tbe majority, however, must prevail, and, accordingly, it is ordered that tbe judgment be reversed and tbe cause remanded for tbe error of the trial court in failing to file bis conclusions of fact and law within tbe proper time.
Reversed and remanded.
Reference
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- EMERY Et Al. v. BARFIELD Et Al.
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