Court Opinion

ID: 9679746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:04:44.022929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:19.466730
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with both the trial court’s and the court of appeals’ conclusion that, under the Craddock v. Sunshine Bus Lines test, there is no basis to set aside the default judgment, because the trial court did not clearly abuse its discretion in overruling (by operation of law) Bank One’s motion for new trial. To the contrary, the record supports the trial court’s action.
The writ of garnishment served on the Bank explicitly directed it to file a written answer within 20 days in accordance with the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, setting forth exactly what had to be in the Bank’s answer. The applicable rule provides that:
[i]f the garnishee fails to file an answer to the writ of garnishment at or before the time directed in the writ, it shall be lawful for the court ... to render a judgment by default ...
See Tex.R.Civ.P. 667.
The Bank erred when it consciously decided to ignore the legal process by not filing a reply, choosing instead to freeze the affected account and tender a check to the court. On previous occasions, the Bank had similarly ignored the explicit procedural directives regarding garnishments. Its branch president testified that he believed that the action he took was legally proper since he had responded to previous writs by simply freezing the affected accounts and, in doing so, had never encountered a legal problem. But a party’s practice, no matter how well established or well intended, should not be permitted to supplant a conflicting legal directive provided by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Allowing this type of “mistake of law” to defeat default judgments severely weakens the legal process. Future defendants may be able to defeat no-answer default judgments by merely asserting that their failure to answer was a mistake of law attributable to some local practice that had always worked before.
The real question before the court, however, is not whether the Bank committed a mistake in answering the writ of garnishment that caused the default judgment. The Bank obviously did err in “answering” the writ by freezing the accounts and tendering a check to the court made out to the State of Texas. The question is did the trial court abuse its discretion by finding *86that the Bank’s mistake failed to negate conscious indifference. In reviewing the trial court’s decision, we should reverse the judgment and order a new trial only if the record reveals that the court clearly abused its discretion in overruling the Bank’s motion for new trial. This court previously has noted that, when applying the abuse of discretion standard, the reviewing court’s inquiry should focus on whether the trial court “acted without reference to any guiding rules and principles.” Downer v. Aquamarine Operators, Inc., 701 S.W.2d 238, 241-42 (Tex.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1159, 106 S.Ct. 2279, 90 L.Ed.2d 721 (1986), citing Craddock v. Sunshine Bus Lines, 133 S.W.2d 124, 126 (Tex.1939). “Another way of stating the test is wheth er the act was arbitrary or unreasonable. The mere fact that a trial judge may decide a matter within his discretionary authority in a different manner than an appellate judge in a similar circumstance does not demonstrate that an abuse of discretion has occurred.” (citations omitted). Downer at 242. A court applying the Craddock test may have abused its discretion if it fails to grant a new trial when the record clearly indicates that the defendant’s mistake negated intent or conscious, indifference.
Conscious indifference means “a failure to take some action which would seem indicated to a person of reasonable sensibilities under the same circumstances.” Johnson v. Edmonds, 712 S.W.2d 651, 652-53 (Tex.App.— Fort Worth 1986, no writ). The testimony of the Bank’s branch president, who received the writ of garnishment, indicates that he may have acted unreasonably in light of the writ’s language. He testified as follows:
Lawyer: Would you — if you could look at the document where it says there, “You are hereby commanded by filing a written answer before said Court,” at such and such a time. You did see that, didn’t you?
President: Yes, I did.
Lawyer: Did you see that at the time this document was handed to you?
President: No.
Lawyer: Did you read it?
President: I don’t remember if I read the entire contents of this document.
The trial court could have reasonably concluded that the Bank’s branch president did read all of the writ’s language. The trial court, within its discretion, found that the branch president’s mistake did not negate conscious indifference. See Carey Crutcher, Inc. v. Mid-Coast Diesel Services, Inc., 725 S.W.2d 500, 502 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1987, no writ) (mistake of law did not negate conscious indifference). Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling the motion for new trial, because the record supports the court’s action.
The case before us is almost identical to First Nat’l Bank of Bryan v. Peterson, 709 S.W.2d 276, 280 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1986, writ ref’d n.r.e.); but the Peterson court reached a result opposite from the one the court reaches today. In Peterson, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s overruling of the bank’s motion for new trial, because the record indicated that the court had not clearly abused its discretion. The court also concluded that:
The fact that [the bank’s] lack of action was allegedly due to its mistaken reliance on an informal local practice which admittedly did not require strict compliance with the rules governing garnishment procedures does not excuse their total lack of action on the matter.

Id.

This conclusion reveals the problem with distinguishing between misfeasance and nonfeasance, which the court’s opinion now would require, in deciding whether a mistake of law satisfied the first element of the Craddock test. The Peterson court ruled that freezing accounts demonstrated the bank’s “total lack of action,” that is, its nonfeasance; but in the instant case, the court holds that freezing accounts (and tendering a check) is some action, though insufficient to answer the writ. I am concerned that creating a misfeasance/nonfea-sance distinction for determining the merit of mistake of law claims will create further *87confusion in an inherently difficult area of the law. The Craddock test does not call for different treatment of mistakes of law and mistakes of fact. It merely asks whether the defendant’s mistake of law or fact negates intent or conscious indifference. Introducing an intermediate analysis to mistake of law questions is unnecessary.
The record in this case contains no indication that the trial court acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner when it chose to overrule the Bank’s motion for new trial. Regrettably, this would force a substantial loss upon the Bank for a debt incurred by another. Nevertheless, the judgment should stand, because the record supports the trial court’s action.
For the above reasons, I dissent.
MAUZY and DOGGETT, JJ., join in this opinion.