Court Opinion

ID: 9831381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:02:21.877284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.124849
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In our original opinion, we expressed the view that “a case tried'in the justice' court and appealed to the county court may not, in the absence of an agreement to that effect, be consolidated in the county court with another action, where the consolidated action would ■ exceed the justice court’s jurisdiction”. We are confronted with a decision of our Supreme Court, in Rust v. Texas & P. R. Co., 107 Tex. 385, 180 S.W. 95, holding, in effect, to the contrary. In that case, three suits were filed in the justice court, each in the sum of $99.95. Two of the cases were consolidated and tried as one case and thereafter the third case was tried; both cases appealed to the county court. In the county court, the two cases were consolidated and tried as one case, in which an aggregate amount of $299.95 was sought to be recovered. That sum, of.course, exceeded the jurisdiction of the justice court and in passing on such state of facts, the Supreme Court said: “There can be no doubt that the consolidation of the two causes in the justice court was proper, as was that in the county court of the cause thus made with the other cause there pending. Article 2182, R.S. This constituted the consolidated causes one suit, to be prosecuted as such (Castro v. Whitlock, 15 Tex. 437), with the aggregate of the amounts involved within the jurisdiction of the county court.” This being the status of the decisions of our Supreme Court, we adhere to its holding; however, the views expressed by us and that of the Supreme Court are not determinative of the issue here involved.
In the case at bar, relief is sought against the prosecution of six suits in the justice court involving items aggregating a sum of $542.65 and many other threatening suits of similar import arising from the same source and between the same parties. Evidently, the six suits cannot be consolidated in the justice court and tried as one suit, as the amount of the consolidated action would exceed the jurisdiction of the justice court; but, it is insisted that any two of the six suits may be consolidated in the justice court, making three instead of six suits to be tried, and, on appeal to the county court, the three consolidated cases may be there consolidated; thus, eventually the entire cause of action may be tried as one case. Indeed, in such circumvention, agreeable to the justice of the peace and the county judge, it is within the realm of possibility that a result might be reached in the manner suggested; but, can it be said that such procedure would defeat the interposition of a court of equity, affording the defendant a complete and adequate remedy at law to the extent to which courts of equity will not go for the purpose of preventing a multiplicity of suits ?
 In the Pearlstone Case, Tex.Com.App., 53 S.W.2d 1001, only three suits were filed in the justice court and a great number of other suits similar in nature and between the same parties were threatened. Our Supreme Court there held that, under the fundamental principles of equity, to prevent a multiplicity of suits with the attending unnecessary expense, vexation, and inconvenience to defend them separately, the defendant had no adequate remedy at law. So, in the instant case, plaintiff having filed six separate suits in the justice court and threatening “other , suits of the same nature he wanted to file and would file”, made, we think, a case for equity. It is not enough to defeat the interposition of a court of equity, that in some anticipatory stage of trial, the various suits filed, and the many others threat*1110ened, may eventually be consolidated into one cause of action. The multiplicity of suits in the justice court, growing out of a transaction between the same parties, which could have properly been brought in one suit, cognizable either in the county court or the district court, is the gravamen of appellant’s complaint. There is nothing reflected in the record to justify appellee’s action in splitting-up his cause of action into so many separate suits. The effect of which, whether intended or not, would result in unnecessary expense, vexation, and inconvenience of trials which the defendant should not be required to bear in the justice court, ' regardless of what could be done on appeals to the county court. The causes of action could properly be brought in one suit in a court of competent jurisdiction; or, by proper pleadings, tantamount to a new suit, be litigated on the remand of this suit, subject, however, to all legal rights of appellant as to venue and other dilatory pleas and defenses.
Motion for rehearing is overruled.