Court Opinion

ID: 9832993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:21:42.412243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:57.289316
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing and to Certify.
The able counsel for appellee has presented a forceful motion for a rehearing herein, and asks, in event we are unable to agree therewith, that we certify the question of limitation to the Supreme Court for determination, citing numerous cases with which, it is insisted, we are in conflict.
Of the cases cited, and with which it is insisted we are in conflict, we should, perhaps, notice particularly the case of Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. Whitaker, 4 Tex. Civ. App. 380, 23 S. W. 520, by one of our own courts. The point in that case insisted upon by appellee here arose in this way: A Mrs. La Prelle sought to show her separate right in certain land, the proceeds of which had been used by her husband, John La Prelle, and in payment of which John La Prelle had conveyed to his wife an interest in certain personal property that had been levied upon, and that was in controversy in the case. In support of such claim, Mrs. La Prelle offered in evidence a copy of a judgment made in 1889, correcting the entry of an original judgment entered in 1882, probating the will of Mrs. La Prelie’s father, and which devised the land mentioned to her. The record so offered was excluded by the trial court; the contention of those contesting Mrs. La Prelle’s claim being that the “court had no power or jurisdiction in 1889 to correct or amend the record probating the will in 1882.” It was in disposing of this contention on appeal that the Court of Civil Appeals, for the Third District said, inter alia, that “because the judgment correcting the mistake is made after a long lapse of time from the entry of the original judgment is no reason why the correcting judgment is void, and is not a reason for denying the court jurisdiction to correct its records.”
It is apparent, we think, that our original holding is not in conflict with the case of Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. Whitaker. In that case the attack on the judgment was collateral. It does not appear that the issue of limitation was even raised in the proceedings to amend; and it is evident that the question before the court in the case of Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company v. Whitaker extended only to the power of the court amending the judgment of 1882 to do as it did. Here is a direct application by one of the parties to the judgment, which is complete on its face, to amend it so as to entirely alter the scope of recovery. To this application the other party to the judgment, by way of exception, expressly pleads the statute of limitation. Here the court’s power to correct is not questioned; but the question is: Is limitation, as a bar to an effort to correct the record of a judgment, available at all to one duly pleading and proving it? We thought, and still think, the affirmative of the question is supported by the decision in De Camp v. Bates, 37 S. W. 644, by the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fifth' District, originally cited by us, where the question of limitation was directly involved, and to which a writ of error was refused. That case cites several authorities, including the case of Milam County v. Robertson, 47 Tex. 222, in which a motion to vacate a judgment of the Supreme Court, entered seven years before for error appearing on the face of the record, was denied on the ground of laches; the court, among other things, saying: “The counsel who present this application were in court when the error of which they complain occurred; yet they then made no objection, either to the submission of the case, or to its decision by the court; nor have they shown us any valid or satisfactory *564reason for their silence for so long a time. There certainly should be some limit to the time within which the court will reopen litigation which, with the apparent assent of the parties, has been seemingly finally disposed of and ended. Innocent third parties may have bought and paid for the land on the faith of the judgment; and, if the case can be reinstated and proceeded with anew, it might work the grossest injustice to other parties, who would have much more right to complain than those who urge this motion. To sanction, by sustaining the motion, such laches as is exhibited in this case, if the motion should have been granted, if presented in proper time, would, we think, set a dangerous precedent, which would be calculated to open the door and invite to fraud.” See, also, Tevis v. Armstrong, 71 Tex. 59, 9 S. W. 134; Murchison v. White, 54 Tex. 78; Mo. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Haynes, 82 Tex. 448, 18 S. W. 605; Williamson v. Wright, 1 Posey, Unrep. Cas. 711; Weaver v. Shaw, 5 Tex. 286.
Appellee cites and quotes from a number of decisions of other states using general language that would seem to sustain his contention herein. All of them are not available to us; but from such as we have been able to examine we think it will be generally found that in the eases referred to the real question involved and decided, as in the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company Case, was one of jurisdiction, and not one of limitation or laches. But, be this as it may, we think the light and trend of our own decisions are of more controlling effect.
The motions to certify and for rehearing will be overruled.