APPEAL AND ERROR — Failure to File Brief — Reversal. Where plaintiff in error has completed his record and filed it in this court, and has served and filed a brief in compliance with the rules of the court, and the defendant in error has neither filed a brief nor offered any excuse for such failure, this court is not required to search the record to find some theory upon which the judgment below may be sustained; but where the brief filed appears reasonably to sustain the assignments of error, the court may reverse the case in accordance with the prayer of the petition of plaintiff in error.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
DUNN, C. J.
This case presents error from the district court of Pittsburg county. Plaintiff in error filed its petition in error, with case-made attached, September 4, 1908, praying for a new trial. October 5, 1908, he filed in the office of the clerk of this court an abstract of the case and a brief in support of his petition in error. This brief shows service on counsel for defendants in error on October 3, 1908. More than a year has elapsed since this was done, yet counsel for defendant in error has filed no answer brief. An examination of plaintiff in error's brief shows that it reasonably sustains the assignments of error, and we will not search the record to find some theory upon which the judgment may be sustained. The increasing work of this court is such that in justice to diligent litigants we cannot brief cases for those who ignore and neglect it.
Hence, on the authority of the cases of Ellis et al. v. Outlet et al., ante, p. 469, 106 P. 957, Butler et al. v. McSpadden, ante, p. 465, 107 P. 170, and Buckner v. Oklahoma National Bank of Shawnee et al., ante, p. 472, 106 P. 959, all recently decided, the cause is reversed and remanded to the district court of Pittsburg county, with instructions to set aside the judgment heretofore entered and grant plaintiff in error a new trial.
Hayes, Kane, and Turner, JJ., concur; Williams, J. dissents