Court Opinion

ID: 9763774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:55:27.872676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:49.662610
License: Public Domain

PEEPLES, Justice,
dissenting, on Denial of Appellee’s Motion for Rehearing En Banc.
The panel opinion completely undermines rule 166a’s authorization of partial summary judgments by holding that even after a partial summary judgment as to some claims the plaintiff may take a nonsuit without prejudice and refile the entire ease. Rule 162 was not meant to be used in this way, as its opening sentence shows: “At any time before the plaintiff has introduced all of his evidence other than rebuttal evidence, the plaintiff may dismiss a case, or take a non-suit_” Tex.R.Civ.P. 162. The notion of the plaintiff “introducing all his evidence” except rebuttal evidence is utterly foreign to summary judgment hearings, in which the nonmovant plaintiff has no burden to present evidence at all unless the movant defendant has disproved an element as a matter of law. There should be no right to nonsuit without prejudice after a partial summary judgment.
The plaintiff had no light to take the non-suit after the court granted the summary judgment; the court therefore had plenary jurisdiction to set aside the nonsuit order and modify it to dismiss the case with prejudice.
I respectfully dissent from the court’s failure to grant en banc rehearing.