Court Opinion

ID: 9654362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:16:40.001219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:05.645591
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Justice,
concurring.
Upon my own motion, and before the filing of any motion for rehearing, I withdraw the concurring opinion which I filed in the matter above captioned on February 3, 1977, and substitute this concurrence in lieu thereof.
I concur with Justice Stephenson’s disposition of this cause but as to one facet of the case, I would go farther than he does. Speaking of the opinion in Prewitt v. Smith, 528 S.W.2d 893 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1975, no writ), Justice Stephenson says: “We have concluded that case is not controlling as to the question before us.”
The Prewitt Court properly held that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to en*711join or otherwise interfere with executive or administrative officials of the state in the lawful exercise of duties and functions committed to them by law. (528 S.W.2d at 895)
However, the jurisdiction of the Court of Civil Appeals in Prewitt was appellate, i. e. derivative. If the trial court lacked jurisdiction, the Court of Civil Appeals “acquires none on appeal, except to declare the invalidity of the proceedings in the trial court and to set them aside.” Family Investment Co. of Houston v. Paley, 356 S.W.2d 353, 355 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston 1962, writ dism’d), and authorities therein cited. See also, Crawford v. Siglar, 470 S.W.2d 915, 918 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1971, writ ref’d n. r. e.).
Thus, the Prewitt Court had no jurisdiction to make any decision upon the merits of the controversy. When it attempted to pass upon the contentions of the parties (as shown in syllabi 3 and 4 on page 896), its comments were at most obiter dictum. In Grigsby v. Reib, 105 Tex. 597, 153 S.W. 1124, 1126 (1913), the Court defined dictum as: “ ‘An opinion expressed by a court, but which, not being necessarily involved in the case, lacks the force of an adjudication; . ’ ” So it is with the expression found in Prewitt relating to the funds in the retirement system.
If the dictum in Prewitt is allowed to stand unchallenged, we may expect counsel to use it as a bar to effective judicial division of community property rights in pension and retirement plans or the enforcement of child support orders under Tex. Family Code Ann. § 14.05(c) (1975). I submit that the statutory provisions exempting funds in the retirement systems from forced seizure were designed to secure the pensioner and his family from improvidence and want. Such provisions were not designed to aid a member in escaping his lawful obligations to his wife and children. Such has been the holding in other states and may very well become the law in Texas in an appropriate case. See, e. g., Fischer v. Fischer, 13 N.J. 162, 98 A.2d 568, 570 (1953); Courtney v. Courtney, 251 Wis. 443, 29 N.W.2d 759, 762 (1947); and Mahone v. Mahone, 213 Kan. 346, 517 P.2d 131, 133 (1973).
I would follow Prewitt only insofar as it holds that the trial court there had no jurisdiction; I would not follow it insofar as it attempts to pass upon the spendthrift clauses in the statutory pension plans. Consequently, and regardless of any language which might be found in Prewitt, I concur in the affirmation of this case.