Court Opinion

ID: 9684299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:52:46.432453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:54.753306
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. This Court has just affirmed a default judgment which *678awards the respondents $4,009.61 in actual damages and $5,500.00 in exemplary damages.
Despite the Court’s detailed account of the facts leading up to the default, the Court has not found that the failure of the petitioners to appear before judgment was intentional or the result of conscious indifference on their part. Neither does the Court assert that the setting aside of the default judgment would occasion a delay or otherwise work an injury to respondents.
The Court based its affirmance solely on petitioners’ failure to set up a meritorious defense.
In their motion to set aside the default judgment, in addition to defensive pleadings denying the fraud, petitioners Pierson and Price incorporated the affidavit of a licensed and bonded polygraph operator in which the operator stated that during a five-hour polygraph examination of petitioner Pierson, covering the many charges of misrepresentation alleged by appellees, it was the operator’s opinion, based on the polygraph results, that Pierson “did not deliberately lie, nor did he give false information to those who contracted for the ICS service.” The affidavit stated that during the examination, Pierson truthfully denied each charge of misrepresentation concerning his sales efforts on behalf of Instant Credit over the past two years.
Petitioner Instant Credit Service, Inc., filed a separate motion to set aside the default judgment, which was sworn to by its attorney, and which stated, among other things, that Instant Credit Service, Inc., had “a good and meritorious defense to the cause of action alleged in Plaintiffs’ First Amended Original Petition in that neither ICS or its agents induced the Plaintiffs to sign the written contracts by fraud or misrepresentation.”
I would hold that the petitioners in this case have satisfied this requirement of setting up a meritorious defense. It is not necessary that the movant prove a meritorious defense; nor is he required to offer admissible evidence of such a defense. Rather, a motion to set aside a default judgment need only “ . . . allege facts which in law would constitute a defense to the cause of action asserted by the plaintiff, and must be supported by affidavits or other evidence proving prima facie that the defendant has such meritorious defense.” Ivy v. Carrell, 407 S.W.2d 212, 214 (Tex.1966).
I fail to see what better defense a defendant in a fraud case can provide than to deny making the fraudulent statements attributed to him. The purpose of the requirement that the movant for a new trial set up a meritorious defense is “to prevent the reopening of cases to try out fictitious or unmeritorious defenses. But once these requirements are met, it is improper to try the defensive issues made by the motion or the pleadings.” Ivy v. Garrell, supra.
I would set aside the judgment entered in the petitioners’ absence, and remand the cause for trial on the merits.