Carrington v. Southern Neon Sign Mfg. Co., 8669.

• Decision Date: 18 November 1931
• Docket Number: No. 8669.,8669.
• Citation: 43 S.W.2d 971
• Parties: CARRINGTON et al. v. SOUTHERN NEON SIGN MFG. CO. et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

43 S.W.2d 971

CARRINGTON et al. v. SOUTHERN NEON SIGN MFG. CO. et al.

No. 8669.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. San Antonio.

November 18, 1931.

Rehearing Denied December 16, 1931.

Appeal from District Court, Bexar County; F. Stevens, Judge.

Suit by the Texas Luminous Sign Manufacturing Company and others against the Southern Neon Sign Manufacturing Company and others, in which defendants filed a cross-action. From an adverse judgment, John B. Carrington and other plaintiffs appeal.

Reversed and remanded.

J. B. Lewright and Gus B. Mauermann, both of San Antonio, for appellants.

McGown & McGown and L. B. Otey, all of Fort Worth, George Otey, of Ardmore, Okl., and Templeton, Brooks, Napier & Brown, of San Antonio, for appellees.

FLY, C. J.

This suit was instituted by the Texas Luminous Sign Manufacturing Company, John B. Carrington, Robert F. Henry, and H. H. Ogilvie, against Southern Neon Sign Manufacturing Company, Gerald F. Mobley, Jack Cameron, C. O. Maddox, Henry Yelvington, R. S. Gardenhire, and Neal E. Beaton, to recover from them on a contract made by appellants with Glen L. Bruner, pursuant to which they lent him $10,000 in cash, being led so to do by fraud and concealment on the part of appellees. It was alleged that Bruner was the agent of the individual appellees. The cause was tried by a jury and on answers to eighty-three questions propounded to them it may be presumed the judgment is based. The judgment was for $47,833. Appellants, who were plaintiffs in the district court, have perfected the appeal to this court. The judgment gave appellants nothing on their petition, and rendered judgment for appellees on their cross-action. Appellants in their motion for new trial gave over three hundred so-called reasons for obtaining a new trial.

The record presents a jumble of facts, fancies, and otherwise for this court to consider. The transcript in this case contains 360 typewritten pages, and the statement of facts is typewritten and bound in two books, containing 712 pages. The cause was tried by jury, consuming three weeks, and it was submitted to the jury on 83 special issues. The multiplicity of issues created a mass of difficulties from which no jury could be extricated with credit to themselves or justice to the parties. Like the widow who placed her mite in the contribution box, they did what they could under the adverse burdensome circumstances. The evolving and formulating of so many issues in any conceivable state of facts would almost inevitably lead any judge, however erudite and learned in the law, into some error. The human mind has its limitations in the wisest of men, and too great a draft on its treasury should be avoided in a trial court, where the opportunity for the study of statutes or text-books and calm consideration are hampered. In a court noted for its conservatism and wisdom, we can account for the action in this case only on the hypothesis that it was superinduced by the zealous argument and importunity upon the part of counsel. We are fortified in this view by the fact that a court, distinguished for the expedition with which cases are disposed of, dragged its weary length along for much more time than should have been consumed in trying the cause. As an aftermath to the long drawn out trial, appellant has filed a printed brief in this court covering 178 pages, and a supplemental brief of 43 pages, with 60 assignments of error copied therein.

As said by the Supreme Court of Iowa in the recent case In re Bradley, 117 Iowa, 472, 91 N. W. 780, 782: "It would require a judicial Solomon to thread his way through a trial of this kind...