Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-434 Page: 5 of 7
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Honorable Bill Allcorn, page 5 (WW-434)
The attitude of the Texas courts in relation to
the function of minutes is indicated in Coleman v. Zapp, 105
Tex. 491, 151 S.W. 1040, 1041, wherein it is said:
"The judgment of a court is what the
court pronounces. Its rendition is the ju-
dicial act by which the court settles and
declares the decision of the law upon the
matters at issue. Its entry is the ministerial
act by which an enduring evidence of the ju-
dicial act is afforded.
"The failure of the minute entry to
correctly or fully recite what the court ju-
dicially determined does not annul the act
of the court, which remains the judgment of
the court notwithstanding its imperfect record.
Freeman on Judgments, 8 38.
"Hence it is that from the earliest
times the power of correcting or amending
their records, by nunc pro tunc entry, so
as to faithfully recite their action, has
been possessed and exercised by the courts
as an inherent right, . . . If a court is
made aware that through mistake or omission
its record do not recite its judgment as
actually rendered, we do not doubt that it
is not only the right but the duty of the
court, of its own motion and after due notice
to the parties, to order the proper entry...
"A proceeding of such character, whose
only purpose is to have the judgment entry
speak truly the judgment as rendered, neither
asserts nor seeks the enforcement of any new
right. It presents no tbsue between the parties
except in respect to the accuracy of the record,
and otherwise involves the .adjudication of
nothing between them. It is powerless to reopen
the controversy as closed and sealed by the
judgment, and makes no such attempt. The in-
quiry under it is not what judgment might or
ought to have been rendered, but only what
judgment was rendered; and such is the sole
issue to be determined." (Emphasis added.)
And in Sloan v. Richey, 143 S.W.2d 119 (Tex.Civ.
App. 1940, error dism. jt. corr.), the court quoted from the
Coleman case, supra, and further quoted from 15 R.C.L. 571,
Section 85, as follows:
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-434, text, May 21, 1958; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth267046/m1/5/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.