Court Opinion

ID: 9832436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:54:52.290573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:46.814255
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellees contend that it was not error of the trial court to sustain the special exception to the latter part of appellant’s plea of privilege. They also find fault witli the conclusion of this court that, in the absence of a statement of facts, it must be assumed that the portion of the plea to which exception was sustained was eliminated, and that appellant was not permitted to support the plea by proof. They say: “In view of the undisputed facts shown in the record, as herein above set out and referred to, it seems to us passing strange that this court should have found that it must be presumed that appellant was denied the right to offer testimony in support of his contention that the transaction between the appellees herein was purely simulated and a mere ‘fi;ame-up’ for the purpose of forcing appellant to litigate in Jackson county rather than in Jefferson county.”
But there are no facts shown in the record. Appellees with artless frankness refer us to two bills of exception filed by appellant in which they say the evidence offered at the trial upon this issue is fully set out. They also candidly admit that these bills of exception were “stricken out and expunged from the record” by the trial court upon their own motion, for the reason that they did not state the true facts. Then appellees refer us to half dozen or more ex parte affidavits which by some means found their way into the record with the expunged bills of exception, and suggest that, if we will only study those documents, we will come to understand that, although the trial court struck out appellant’s plea of fraudulent transfer and eliminated, that issue, he nevertheless allowed the issues to be fully devel*741oped by the evidence, and that, although the bills of exception have been expunged from the record for the reason that they state an untruth, they will give us a true statement of the evidence introduced and the proceedings had. Appellees also call our attention to the fact that this issue was submitted in the court’s charge by the first question in the special issues, and that the question was answered in the negative. If the jury had answered this question in the affirmative, thereby holding that there was a fraudulent transaction between defendant Young and the bank for the purpose of fixing the venue of the cause in Jackson county, might it not have been urged in this court that the action of the trial court in submitting this issue was unauthorized and erroneous, because there was no pleading to support it? Appel-lees declare that the ease of Pearce v. Wallis, Landis & Co. et al., supra, is not in point because in that case the plea of privilege was sustained. Yet the court held in that case as follows: “No such charge was made by either defendant in his plea of privilege, but in answering to the merits they did charge that the assignment of the claim by Baker to the plaintiff was for the fraudulent purpose of attempting to confer jurisdiction upon the court below. However, the averment referred to stated no defense on the merits of the ease, and therefore, as pleaded, it-was immaterial. It was not made a part of the several pleas of privilege to be sued in another county, and therefore it did not present any issue proper to be submitted to the jury. Notwithstanding the statute enacted by the Thirtieth Legislature amending the law with reference to pleas of privilege, we are of the opinion that a defendant cannot in a plea of privilege seeking to change the venue present an issue of fraudulent assignment of the claim sued upon, without specifically charging in such plea that the claim was fraudulently assigned for the purpose of conferring jurisdiction.” It is rare that two cases present conditions so similar, and the ease is peculiarly in point. Nor is the Pearce Case in conflict with Stevens v. Polk County, 123 S. W. 618. In the latter case the court declared that the form of plea of privilege set out in article 1194a, Laws of 1907, c. 133, was not exclusive, and that a plea in the form in use before the enactment of that law was sufficient, and that the court erred in striking it out on exception.
[7] It is further contended that this court erred in not refusing to consider appellant’s assignments of error because no statement of facts accompanied the record. They urge that, in the absence of a statement of facts, it must be held that any error committed by the trial court was entirely harmless and abstract. No such a proposition can be sustained. It is true, as held in Lockett v. Schurenberg (Sup.) 60 Tex. 613, Gatlin v. Street, 40 Tex. Civ. App. 304, 90 S. W. 318, and in other cases- cited, that assignments based upon the exclusion of evidence, and in some cases overruling special exceptions, will rarely be considered in the absence of a statement of facts, because in'such case it is not usually possible for the court to determine whether the trial court was right or wrong in its ruling. Exceptions to this rule occur when bills of exception are in the record sufficient to reveal the facts to this court. But this is not such a case. Here the court sustained a special exception to a material allegation in appellant’s pleadings, and, so far as the record reveals to us, he was deprived of his right to prove a material defense. There are few rights more valuable to the litigant than that of being sued only in the county of his residence, and, where he has fairly raised that issue in a cause pending against him in another county and been deprived of the .right to present the same fully in the case, no presumption will be indulged against him in this court.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.