Court Opinion

ID: 9762271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:18:23.753943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:32.580725
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
In our original opinion we said that our disposition of this case on appellants’ point of error No. 1 renders unnecessary a discussion of the remaining point of error presented by appellants. However, upon considering appellants’ motion for rehearing and hearing oral arguments thereon, we have concluded that appellants’ point of error No. 2 should also be discussed.
Appellants allege in point of error No. 2 that “The court erred in dismissing Defendants’ cause of action based upon its finding of unreasonable delay on the part of Defendants in prosecuting the cause of action.”
*379The facts material to this point of error are that the appellants, condemnees in the City of Tyler’s eminent domain suit, filed their objections to the Commissioners’ award in the County Court on October 6, 1960, within ten (10) days after the award had been made and filed. Appellants withdrew the amount of the award on the 9th of January, 1961, and never took any other steps or made any effort to bring the City of Tyler to trial on the action resulting by appellants’ filing of objections on October 6, 1960. On September 19, 1963, two (2) years, eleven (11) months and thirteen (13) days after this condemnation proceeding was filed in the County Court and became a court action, the City of Tyler filed a motion requesting the trial court to dismiss the cause because of the fact that appellants had never requested the issuance or service of citation or did anything showing diligence on their part in prosecuting the case. The motion further alleged that the lack of diligence on the part of appellants was such as to conclusively show the case had been abandoned.
The trial court heard the motion with appellants’ attorneys being present and concluded that the cause should be dismissed and entered an order to that effect on October 4, 1963.
The record does not show that this case has ever been set for trial, except at the time the City of Tyler filed its motion to dismiss the cause. None of these findings of fact made in response to appellants’ request for findings of fact and conclusions of law sustain appellants’ point. The trial court made the following findings in paragraph III and IV of his findings of fact.
“III.
“Condemnees never requested that any citation issue in this case and no citation ever issued in this action for service on anyone. No action was taken in this case after the objections to the award was filed until condemnees deposited a jury fee in the case on March 21, 1963; thereafter the case was set for trial, whereupon the CITY OF TYLER filed its Motion to Dismiss the Case because of the failure of the condemnees to have citation issued and served for more than two (2) years after the filing of the objections and because the case had been abandoned.
“IV.
“On the trial on the Motion no excuse or reason was offered to excuse the delay in the prosecution of the case by the condemnees.”
No objections or exceptions were taken to these findings and no request for additional findings was made.
It is an inherent right of the court, existing independently of any statute, to dismiss a suit for failure to prosecute it with due diligence. The exercise of this right is discretionary with the trial court and will not be interfered with unless it clearly appears that the court has abused its discretion. Vol. 20, Tex.Jur.2d, p. 214, Section 33; Routh et al. v. City of San Antonio, Tex.Civ.App., 302 S.W.2d 452; Howeth v. Davenport, Tex.Civ.App., 311 S.W.2d 480; First National Bank of Houston et al. v. Fox et al., 121 Tex. 7, 39 S.W.2d 1085; Bevil v. Johnson, 157 Tex. 621 307 S.W.2d 85.
In the case of Butler v. Express Pub. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 151 S.W.2d 309, where the trial court had dismissed a lawsuit which had been tried and appealed and reversed and after reversal was dismissed by the trial court for the want of prosecution, the court said:
“The record indicates that evidence was heard upon plaintiff’s motion to set aside the order of dismissal, but contains no statement of facts or bills of exception, or other authentic statement showing what that evidence was. This being so the conclusive presumption is, of course, that the evidence, coupled with facts embraced in the *380records of the trial court, and of which the trial judge could properly take notice * * * was sufficient to warrant the trial judge, in the exercise of a wide discretion in such1 matters, to overrule plaintiff’s motion for reinstatement. That being so, this court has no discretion in the matter, and cannot revise the order of the trial judge.”
In the above case, the court also said that there was no merit in plaintiff’s contention that the court erred in sustaining the defendants’ oral motion to dismiss saying:
“For it is true, as a matter of course, that a trial judge may dismiss a suit for want of prosecution of his own motion or on motion of either party, in whatsoever form presented, oral or otherwise.”
One of the latest cases on the question of abandonment is the case of Denton County v. Brammer, 361 S.W.2d 198, where our Supreme Court held that when a con-demnee objected to findings of a condemnation commission and filed objections to the award, the filing became a cause pending in the County Court of Denton County and such cause so filed should be tried and determined as in other civil causes in the county court. In the Denton County case no citation was issued. Sometime after the filing of the original objections, amended objections were filed, but no citation was issued. The Supreme Court in the course of the opinion said:
“The filing of the original objections in this case vacated the award of the special Commissioners. The condem-nor, Denton County, became the plaintiff and Brammer, the condemnee, became the defendant. Although the con-demnee, Brammer, became the defendant, we construe the statute, Article 3266, supra, to mean that the condem-nee, Brammer, had the burden of causing the issuance of citation and the obtaining of service of such ^citation upon the condemnor, Denton County. While the condemnor, Denton County, as plaintiff, had the burden of proving all the essentials necessary to show a right to condemnation, Fort Worth & D. N. Ry. Co. v. Johnson, 125 Tex. 634, 84 S.W.2d 232, and had the burden of going forward to trial, it was under no legal obligation to do so unless and until it had been served with citation.

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“Brammer abandoned his objections, and exceptions long before the filing of his amended objections and exceptions to the award, and, therefore, was not entitled to a judicial determination of the matters presented in his objections and exceptions to the special Commissioners’ award. See Flanagan v. Smith, 21 Tex. 493; Ponton v. Bellows, 13 Tex. 254; Gillespie’s Adm’r v. Redmond, 13 Tex. 9; Bogle v. Landa et al., 127 Tex. 317, 94 S.W.2d 154; Ware v. Jones et al., Tex.Com.App, 242 S.W. 1022; Routh v. City of San Antonio, Tex.Civ.App., 302 S.W.2d 452, no writ hist.; Callahan v. Staples, 139 Tex, 8, 161 S.W.2d 489, 491; Bevil v. Johnson, 157 Tex. 621, 307 S.W.2d 85.
“Since the duty devolves upon the condemnee to cause the issuance of citation, it seems logical to say that he must act with reasonable diligence, and, upon failure to so act, the rules announced in the above cases wherein plaintiffs failed to prosecute their suits with reasonable diligence should be applicable in cases where a condemnee fails to cause the service of citation, and the question of his diligence is in issue. Brammer, so far as the citation was concerned, occupied the same status as a cross-plaintiff, and having failed to act with diligence and having failed to offer any explanation for such failure, he abandoned his objections and exceptions as a matter of law. The rule in Callahan v. Staples, supra, ap*381plies here. In that case wherein the issue of abandonment was raised, the Court said: ‘Where the defendant in a suit is called to answer and has responded to the call, the duty devolves on the plaintiff to proceed in prosecuting the suit to a conclusion with reasonable diligence, and whenever a delay of an unreasonable duration occurs, such delay, if not sufficiently explained, will raise a conclusive presumption of abandonment of the plaintiff’s suit, * * discontinuance results(Emphasis added.)
“This rule was quoted with approval in Bevil v. Johnson, supra (1957).”
The rule is now well established that where a party to the suit has the duty to proceed with the prosecution of the suit with reasonable diligence, a delay of unreasonable duration, if not sufficiently explained, will raise a conclusive presumption of abandonment and will authorize the trial court to exercise his discretion in dismissing the suit.
In Hinkle v. Thompson, Tex.Civ.App., 195 S.W. 311, error refused, the court had before it a case where a suit was filed on June 10, 1933. A plea of privilege was filed and sustained, and the case ordered transferred to Hardin County, Texas, but the record was not sent to Hardin County until October 19, 1950, a period of one (1) year, three (3) months and twenty-three (23) days after the plea of privilege was sustained. One year, three months and twenty-three days after the case was transferred to Hardin County the defendants filed a motion to have the same dismissed for abandonment. The trial court sustained the motion and dismissed the case. The Court of Civil Appeals held there was nothing in the record to show an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in overruling a motion by the plaintiff to set aside the order of dismissal.
In the Hinkle v. Thompson case, the court also cited the case of Ponton v. Bellows, 13 Tex. 254, wherein the delay complained of was about two (2) years and five (5) months. In that case the Supreme Court said:
“It certainly would require very cogent reasons satisfactorily to explain the delay which appears in this case.”
In the case of Reed v. Reed, 158 Tex. 298, 311 S.W.2d 628, Judge Garwood of the Supreme Court held that where a plaintiff had failed for some fifteen months to have citation issued and served in a case he had filed in El Paso County, even though he testified he intended in good faith to get out service in the case and prosecute it to final judgment, the same could be dismissed.
We find no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in dismissing this case and appellants’ point of error No. 2 cannot be sustained. Appellants’ motion for rehearing is overruled.