First Nat. Bank of McAllen v. Smith

• Decision Date: 13 December 1922
• Docket Number: (No. 6834.)
• Citation: 246 S.W. 1056
• Parties: FIRST NAT. BANK OF McALLEN v. SMITH.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

246 S.W. 1056

FIRST NAT. BANK OF McALLEN v. SMITH.

(No. 6834.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. San Antonio.

December 13, 1922.

Rehearing Denied January 17, 1923.

Appeal from District Court, Hidalgo County; Hood Boone, Judge.

Action by M. L. Smith against the First National Bank of McAllen. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

J. E. Leslie, of McAllen, and Seabury, George & Taylor, of Brownsville, for appellant.

Gordon Griffin and D. W. Glasscock, both of McAllen, for appellee.

FLY, C. J.

This is a suit instituted by appellee against appellant to recover the sum of $3,000 actual damages and $5,000 exemplary damages. It was alleged in the petition that appellee entered into an agreement of partnership with T. Stockton, the cashier of the appellant bank, said Stockton agreeing to furnish all money necessary to buy and sell cotton in Hidalgo county, out of his private funds, the same to be kept on deposit in the bank in appellee's name, the latter to do all the buying and selling of cotton and to draw all checks against the deposits. Details of partnership transactions are given, and then it was alleged that the bank informed appellee of an overdraft drawn by him amounting to several thousand dollars, which appellee paid, and the partnership between him and Stockton was dissolved, and afterwards on October 18, 1921, he placed a check for $4,940.19 in the bank for collection, and the same was collected by appellant and appropriated to its own use and benefit, and that it refuses to pay the same to appellee, with the exception of $1,940.19 which was received by appellee. A verdict was instructed for appellee in the sum of $3,000.

The issues in this case are necessarily few and simple, as they can only involve the liability of appellant for money deposited in the bank by appellee, and yet appellant has filed herein briefs containing 75 pages of typewritten matter, 23 pages of which are devoted to what is denominated a "statement of the nature and result of the suit." In that statement are contained a full résumé of the pleadings, followed by a long and tedious statement of the evidence of the different witnesses, statements of what appellant desired to prove but was prevented by the court, and other unnecessary matter. Rule 29 provides that —

"The opening part of the brief for the appellant shall consist of a plain and succinct statement of the nature and result of the suit, not argumentative, but constituting a concise...