Case Name: W. C. Alexander and Wife v. William Hagedorn
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1950-02-01
Citations: 148 Tex. 565
Docket Number: No. A-2271
Parties: W. C. Alexander and Wife v. William Hagedorn.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 148
Pages: 565–583

Head Matter:
W. C. Alexander and Wife v. William Hagedorn.
No. A-2271.
Decided February 1, 1950.
Rehearing overruled March 8, 1950.
(226 S. W., 2d Series, 996.)
Justices Smedley and Taylor dissenting.
Justice Hart not sitting.
Wm. Yelderman, of Austin, for petitioners.
The Court of Civil Appeals erred in holding that the matters pleaded by appellee, Hagedorn, in justification of his failure to answer plaintiffs’ suit in the trial court, showed that the judgment in said cause was rendered against appellee without any negligence of his part and that he used diligence to prevent it. Also in its holding that the adverse judgment was suffered by appellee through fraud, accident or acts of the opposing party, wholly unmixed with any fault of his own. Puls v. Clark, 199 S. W. (2d) 811; Rogers v. Dickson, 176 S. W. 865; Hill v. Lester, 91 S. W. (2d) 1152; Kelly v. Wright, 188 S. W. (2d) 983.
Richards & Richards and C. F. Richards, all of Lockhart, Hart, Brown <6 Sparks and J. H. Hart, all of Austin, for respondent.
A void judgment may be set aside at any time, although it may have been corrected on appeal, and although petitioners alleged that the mule was on the highway in violation of the local law, of which courts do not take judicial knowledge, they failed to assert the various things necessary, as required by statute, to adopt the local law to the area where the accident happened and to bring such matter to the attention of the court. Witt v. Kaufman, 25 Texas Supl. 384; Glass v. Smith, 66 Texas 548; Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Tolbert, 100 Texas 483, 101 S. W. 206; Austin Bros. v. Patton, 288 S. W. 182.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Brewster
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a proceeding by bill of review brought by William Hagedorn, respondent, against W. C. Alexander et ux., petitioners, to set aside a judgment rendered in their favor against respondent at a former term of court. A trial court judgment for Hagedorn was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 220 S. W. (2d) 196.
In the original suit, the Alexanders alleged that while they were riding on a public highway at night in their automobile and while they were meeting another automobile, a mule stepped from behind the latter vehicle and immediately in front of their own; that to avoid striking the mule, Mrs. Alexander was compelled to steer their automobile into a ditch, which action overturned the car causing damage to it and severe injuries to her; that Hagedorn was the owner of the mule and had permitted it to run at large and unattended upon the highway in violation of a local stock law.
Hagedorn was not born "in this country" and at the time of the trial of his bill of review was 75 years old, but he had lived in Gonzales, Hays and Caldwell Counties for 52 years. He cannot read or write the English language. So, when the citation was served on him in the damage suit, he requested the deputy sheriff to explain its meaning. The officer explained that it meant that the Alexanders were suing Hagedorn for damages. He told Hagedorn what they alleged in support of their demands and that the citation required Hagedorn to appear in district court at Lockhart on September 1, 1947, to answer the suit.
According to the trial judge's findings of fact, Hagedorn went to the district courtroom on September 1 but found nobody there, whereupon he went to the district clerk's office and told the clerk he was there to answer the Alexander's suit. The clerk told Hagedorn that the district judge was not in Lock-hart and that no court would be held that week. Asked by the clerk whether he had an attorney, Hagedorn replied that he did not. He then gave the clerk his address, requesting the clerk to notify him when to return to defend the suit. Hagedorn "understood that the Clerk would notify him when he should return to Lockhart for the purpose of defending" the suit but did not understand that he was required to employ an attorney or to do anything more than he had done in response to the process served on him." Then Hagedorn went home; he employed no attorney; and, receiving no word from the clerk "or from any other person" relative to the suit, he did nothing further about it until after April 1, 1948, when he learned that garnishment had been run against his bank account following a judgment rendered against him on December 8, 1947, three months and one week after he had his conversation with the clerk. Then he did employ attorneys and filed this action.
The trial court found that Hagedorn "had a complete and absolute defense" to the Alexanders' suit in that he did not own the mule and was not responsible for it being on the highway when the Alexanders' car was forced off the road; that the court would not have entered judgment for the Alexanders on December 8, 1947, if he "had not understood from the testimony given and the statements made to the Court at that time that defendant William Hagedorn admitted that the mule which was on the highway and which was alleged to have caused the accident was his mule and was a mule for the custody of which he was responsible"; that when Hagedorn came to the courtroom on September 1, 1947, he came to inform the court that he did not own, and was not responsible for, the mule at the time of the accident; and that the mule belonged to, and was under the control of, Hagedorn's son, Robert, at the time of the accident, which fact was known to the. Alexanders when they filed suit "and at all times thereafter."
Petitioners complain that the Court of Civil Appeals erred in holding that these facts showed that Hagedorn had suffered the judgment to be rendered against him "through fraud, accident or acts of the opposing party, wholly unmixed with any fault or negligence of his own."
Although the bill of review is an equitable proceeding,. before a litigant can successfully invoke it to set aside a final judgment he must allege and prove (1) a meritorious defense' to the cause of action alleged to support the judgment,' (2) which he was presented from making by the fraud, accident or wrongful act of the opposite party, (3) unmixed with any fault or negligence of his own. Garcia et al. v. Ramos et al. (Civ. App.), 208 S. W. (2d) 111 (er. ref.). Because it is fundamentally important in the administration of justice that some finality be accorded to judgments, these essentials have been uniformly recognized by our courts; therefore, bills of review seeking relief from judgments "are always watched by courts of equity with extreme jealously, and the grounds on which interference will be allowed are narrow and restricted"; and the rules are not to be relaxed merely because it may appear in some particular case that an injustice has been done. Harding v. Pearson Co. et al. (Com. App.), 48 S. W. (2d) 964. As said by the Supreme Court of California, "Endless litigation, in which nothing was ever finally determined, would be worse than occasional miscarriages of justice." Pico v. Cohn et al., 91 Cal., 129, 25 Pac., 970, 13 L. R. A. 336, 25 Am. St. Rep. 159.
Although negligence is a question of fact for the trial court, it is a question of law whether, when the facts are so established, they amount to any evidence to sustain that issue. Crawford v. Houston & T. C. R. Co., 89 Texas, 89, 33 S. W., 534; San Antonio Brewing Ass'n v. Wolfshohl (Civ. App.), 155 S. W., 644 (er. ref.) ; Houston E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Boone, 105 Texas, 188, 146 S. W., 533. So the question is whether respondent's conversation with the clerk and his understanding of its import, as found by the trial court, tend to show diligence on respondent's part in defending the suit.
"Reliance upon the statements or promises of third persons even though they may occupy some official position or seem to be in a position to have better information than the party himself, does not ordinarily entitle to relief for failing to make a defense." Freeman, Law of Judgments (5th Ed.), Vol. 3, Sec. 1245, p. 2592.
Under any other rule it would be very difficult if not impossible for a trial court to function in the field of default judgments. For it would mean that before the court could enter a valid judgment against a non-answering defendant, he would have to call in the clerk, the sheriff and perhaps all other courthouse officials and their deputies to ascertain whether any of them had made any extra-official agreement to notify the defendant when his case would be on call, even though the judge, as is true in this case, may have no intimation whatever from any source that any such agreement has been made. Obviously, such a situation would be intolerable. As said by the Appellate Court of Indiana, in a case wherein defense counsel relied on the clerk of the trial court to inform him of the day of trial of his client's case, "If the arrangement made by the appellant with the clerk is respected, it will become a precedent, and whenever a like arrangement shall be made hereafter, and the clerk does not keep his promise, the courts will be placed under the imperative duty of giving relief. Such arrangements would probably become more frequent, because of the disposition of the officers of courts to be courteous and obliging to attorneys." Western Union Tel. Co. v. Griffin, 1 Ind. App. 46, 27 N. E., 113.
In Elton v. Brettschneider, 33 Ill. Ap., 355, appellant attacked a default judgment, alleging that he was summoned to the August term, went to the courtroom on the morning of the first Monday in August, but found no court in session and was told by "various" officers of the court that there would be no court until September 17; that he believed them, and his attorney being out of town he paid no more attention to the suit; that, therefore, he did not know until the term was over that judgment had been taken. The court said, "Equity can not give relief on such grounds. The appellee is not chargeable with the consequences of the appellant's ignorance or negligence."
The true rule is stated in 31 Am. Jur., Sec. 745, p. 286. "The failure of a clerk of court to inform a party or his attorney as to the status of a cause is ordinarily regarded as insufficient ground for the opening or vacating of a judgment resulting therefrom. This rule has even been applied where the clerk failed to answer letters inquiring about the status of the case, and where he failed to keep his promise to keep the party informed. On the other hand, relief has been granted where a judgment was rendered against a party in consequence of some mistake or fault of a clerk of the court, where there was no negligence on the part of the litigant, or where the negligence was excusable. This rule has been applied where a party has in good faith endeavored to ascertain from the clerk of the court the condition of the cause upon the court's calendar, and is honestly misled by information received. Thus, it has been' decided to be proper to open a default against a defendant, where his attorney was informed by the clerk that no business would be transacted by the court until after a certain date, and relying upon this statement he did not appear until such date, when he found that his pending demurrer had been overruled."
This statement recognizes the difference between promises or statements made by the clerk within the scope of his official duties and those made outside of it. For example, it is not the clerk's official duty to undertake to keep a party informed as to the status of his case or when it will be reached on the docket. It is his official duty to know when sessions of the court will be held, what class of business will or will not be disposed of at a given time and what his office records show with respect to pending litigation, therefore when he gives an inquiring litigant the wrong information within that field the litigant is not at fault.
It is declared in 164 A. L. R., p. 552, subdivision a, of Annotation III: "If it can be called as much, the only rule which can be stated, in respect of relief from a judgment on the ground of misinformation by the clerk of the court as to the status of the case or as to the time of trial or hearing, is that each case depends upon its own particular or peculiar circumstances." But a study of the seven cases cited in subdivision b, of the note, as granting relief on such misinformation, discloses that in all of them the "particular or peculiar circumstances" demanding relief arose in that field wherein it was the official duty of the clerk to act. For example, in Yerkes v. Dangle, by a superior court of Delaware, 42 Del. 362, 33 Atl. 2d., 406, the defendant alleged that in April, 1942, a deputy sheriff read to him a paper to the effect that plaintiff had sued him and that he should appear on May 4; on that day he went to the Court of Common Pleas, where he was told that no action was pending there against him; then he went to the Superior Court room, where he was given the same answer; and then, at the direction of the sheriff's office, he went to the Prothonotary's office, where an "official" told him that no action was pending there against him and that "he should go home and forget about it." The court held that "litigants are entitled to rely on statements by officials charged with the custody and control of papers and records relating to judicial proceedings in which they are interested, and about which information is sought, and that a judgment by default will be opened if it is due to the inaccuracy of information given by such officials." In Hog's Back, etc. Co. v. New Basil, etc. Co., 65 Cal. 22, 2 Pac., 489, on former appeal, the Supreme Court of California had given appellant 20 days after the filing of a remittitur in the trial court in which to file his answer; the remittitur was filed March 14 but the clerk failed to make a note of its filing in his official records, and it was not until April 7, after 20 days had elapsed, that appellant learned of its filing, although he had meantime made frequent inquiries at the clerk's office as to whether it had been filed or when it would be filed and was informed (because of the clerk's failure to make the entry in his official records) that remittitur had not been filed nor could it be filed until March 25; default judgment was entered because appellant had not answered within 20 days after March 14. It was held that appellant had the right to rely on the clerk's information that the remittitur of March 14 had not been filed, "coming as it did from an officer having custody of the records, where an entry should regularly have been made." In McCall v. Hitchcock, 72 Ky. (9 Bush) 66, Hitchcock and his business associates were sued in a number of cases, one of them being a suit against him by McCall. Seeing that some papers served on him were processes in suits against him, but apparently not reading them, Hitchcock became enraged and tore up the papers. But the next day he engaged an attorney to represent him and his associates in all pending suits. He and his attorney went to the court clerk's office and asked for the papers in all these suits; a deputy clerk produced the papers in several of them, being assisted in his search by one of McCall's attorneys. Hitchcock told the deputy that he thought there was a suit against him by McCall, but after further search the deputy failed to find it. It was held that although Hitchcock had wrongfully torn up papers which would have informed him of McCall's suit he had later used "ordinary prudence" to leam of it and was en-entitled to relief against a judgment later rendered against him. In Logan v. Southall, 137 Iowa, 372, 115 N. W., 19, Southall was served on June 16 with notice that Logan would file his petition in a suit against Southall, in the office of the clerk of the district court, on and before August 21 and unless Southall appeared on the second day of the term beginning August 31, default judgment would be entered. The petition was filed on August 18. On August 21 Southall wrote the district clerk, reciting the notice that had been served, and asked "if there has been any such paper filed against me." The next day the clerk replied in the negative. So Southall did not answer the suit and default was later entered against him. Southall knew nothing of this judgment until execution issued, whereupon he filed his petition alleging a meritorious defense, setting up the foregoing facts as an excuse for not defending the suit and asking that the judgment be set aside. It was held that Southall had sought and received information from an officer charged with custody of the' papers, relating to which information had been sought, and was entitled to rely on it. In Carter v. Grimmet, 89 Okla., 37, 213 Pac. 732, the defendant in an action for possession of land was notified by the clerk's office that the case had been dismissed for want of prosecution, hence he paid no further attention to it and did not know that it had sfibsequently been reinstated and judgment entered until writ of possession had issued against his tenant. It was held that defendant had been misled by an officer of the court and could not, therefore, be charged with lack of diligence. Clearly none of these cases deals with a non-official, gratuitous undertaking by the clerk such as is presented in the case at bar. The other two cases cited in the A. L. R. note, supra, are Texas cases: Lanius v. Shuber, 77 Texas, 24, 13 S. W., 614, and Panhandle Motors Co. v. Foster (Civ. App.), 245 S. W., 269. Both, however, have to do with a motion for new trial rather than with a bill of review.
When respondent requested the district clerk to notify him when he should return to court to defend the suit he was requesting the clerk to undertake something that the latter was in no sense required to do in his official capacity. So, as to that, the clerk became respondent's agent, and negligence of the clerk must be charged to respondent; it became his own negligence.
Garcia et al. v. Ramos et al., supra (208 S. W. 2d, 111), which got the unqualified and very recent approval of this court, is as nearly on all fours with this case as any case may well be. There the plaintiffs, in attacking a default judgment under which they were about to be evicted from their homestead, alleged that they were aged Spanish-Americans and ignorant of court proceedings; that they were told by the deputy sheriff who served the citations that they need not appear until he notified them; that they relied on this and on the good faith of their relatives, the plaintiffs in the original suit, to make full disclosure of their rights to the trial court but that these relatives perjuriously concealed those rights from the court; that because of these facts the default judgment was rendered. The Court of Civil Appeals held that although Garcia et al. had alleged a good defense to the cause of action, they had failed to allege facts which showed that they were prevented from that defense by fraud, accident or the tvrongful act of Ramos et al, unmixed with any negligence of their own. Then the court added: "They allege that they depended upon the deputy sheriff to notify them when to come to court. In doing so they made him their agent, and when he neglected to so notify them it was the negligence of their own agent. It is not shown that appellees were in anywise responsible for the deputy sheriff making such promise or for his failure to keep his promise."
In that case the complaining parties did everything that the respondent in this case did. They talked with a court official and got his promise to notify them when to appear in court; respondent talked to a court official, requested him to notify respondent when to return to court to defend the suit and "understood" that the official would do so. It is true that respondent came to the courtroom on the day commanded in the citation, but after his conversation with the clerk he returned home and for the ensuing three months and one week before judgment was rendered against him he did exactly what Garcia et al. did: he waited for the court official to fulfill his extra-official undertaking to notify him when to come to court.
Again, Hagedorn cannot prevail because he has not shown that he was prevented from making his defense to the Alexanders' suit by their fraud or wrongful act.
Fraud in its relation to attacks on final judgments is either extrinsic or intrinsic. Only extrinsic fraud will entitle a complainant to relief because it is a wrongful act committed "by the other party to the suit which has prevented the losing party either from knowing about his rights or defenses, or from having a fair opportunity of presenting them upon the trial. Such, for instance, as where he has been misled by his adversary by fraud or deception, did not know of the suit, or was betrayed by his attorney. In other words, fraud which denied him the opportunity to fully litigate upon the trial all the rights of defenses he was entitled to assert. 'Intrinsic fraud' in the procurement of a judgment is not ground, however, for vacating such judgment in an independent suit brought for that purpose. And within that term is included such matters as fraudulent instruments, perjured testimony, or any matter which was actually presented to and considered by the trial court in rendering the judgment assailed." State v. Wright (Civ. App.), 56 S. W. (2d) 950, which was cited with approval and substantially quoted by this court in Crouch et al. v. McGaw, 134 Texas, 633, 138 S. W. (2d) 94.
The Supreme Court of the United States gives these illustrations of extrinsic fraud: "Where the unsuccessful party has been prevented from exhibiting fully his case, by fraud or deception practiced on him by his opponent, as by keeping him away from court, a false promise of a compromise; or where the defendant never had knowledge of the suit, being kept in ignorance by the acts of the plaintiff" and then says: "The court will not set aside a judgment because it was founded on a fraudulent instrument, or perjured evidence, or from any matter which was actually presented and considered in the judgment assailed. (Italics ours.) United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S., 61, 25 L. Ed., 93.
In Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Jenkins, 91 Fed. (2d) 183, 187, it is said that extrinsic fraud is wrongful conduct of the successful party practiced outside of an adversary trial and which is practiced directly and affirmatively upon the defeated party, or his agents, attorneys or witnesses.
That intrinsic fraud arises only in relation to "questions examined and determined in the action", or to "the matter on which the judgment was rendered", has been declared in other jurisdictions. For example, see Caldwell v. Taylor, 218 Cal. 471, 23 Pac. (2d) 758, 88 A. L. R., 1194; Pico v. Cohn, supra; Clark v. Clark, 64 Mont. 386, 210 Pac., 93. In fact, the principle is so generally applied that Freeman states in his Law of Judgments (5th Ed.,), Vol. 3, p. 2567, that judgments are not impeachable for frauds relating to the merits between the parties; that all mistakes and errors must be corrected from within by motion for a new trial, or to reopen the judgment, or by appeal; that the fraud which will otherwise relieve must be in some matter other than the issue in controversy in the action.
This wealth of authority compels the conclusion that the wrongful act of petitioners in stating to the trial court in the default judgment proceedings that respondent admitted ownership of the mule was intrinsic fraud. The fundamental issue which petitioners had to establish in order to prevail in the original suit were : (1) that respondent owned a mule, (2) which he permitted to run at large in violation of law, (3) thereby proximately causing the damages sued for. When respondent defaulted, all of them were to be taken as proved and admitted and the right of petitioners as well as the liability of respondent was foreclosed, except as to the amount of damages. Southern S. S. Co. v. Schumacher (Civ. App.), 154 S. W. (2d) 282 (er. ref. want merit) ; Johnson v. Brown (Civ. App.), 218 S. W. (2d) 317 (er. ref. n. r. e.). Nevertheless respondent's ownership of the mule remained an essential element of the cause of action alleged by petitioners. The cautious trial judge recognized this when, although the law says the issue was to be taken as confessed, he required assurance that respondent owned the mule. That he was satisfied by an unsworn statement by petitioners and did not require their testimony under oath does not alter the fact that it related to a basic phase of the case; it still had to do with the merits between the parties. We fail to see how any statement made by petitioners that respondent had admitted ownership of the mule, made to the trial judge for the purpose of getting a default judgment, could be extrinsic fraud if made without the sanction of an oath, but intrinsic fraud if made under that sanction.
At one point in his findings the trial court states that if he had not "understood from the testimony given and statements made to the court at that time" that respondent admitted ownership of the mule he would have postponed the case. Under that version of what happened, we cannot hold that the "testimony given" was intrinsic fraud but that the "statements made" were extrinsic fraud, when the testimony was given and the statements made at the same place and time, for the same purpose and on the same issue.
Having wholly failed to establish two of the three essential elements of a cause of action for bill of review, respondent is not entitled to recover.
Accordingly, both judgments below are reversed and judgment is rendered for petitioners.
Opinion delivered February 1, 1950.