Court Opinion

ID: 9830625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:20:00.18848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:24.885313
License: Public Domain

*467On Motion for Rehearing.
In appellees’ motion for rehearing this is said:
“The court erred in holding in effect that the testatrix Lottie Sommers attempted to create trusts by the provisions of the will. ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
“When it is plain, as in this case, that the testatrix did not intend to create a trust, it cannot he said that she attempted to create a trust as held by this court in its opinion.”
Following that statement, authorities are cited showing the distinction made by the courts between a testamentary.power and a trust. In the first place, the position so taken is at variance with the .theory of appellees’ defense to appellants’ suit in the trial court, and with their counter proposition to appellants’ assignments of error presented in this court. In their answer filed in the trial court, they excepted to the sufficiency of the petition for lack of necessary parties who should be joined as defendants. Following that, numerous persons are listed as such necessary parties, only a few of whom will be here noted, to wit:
“Charlotte Ann Sommers, Conrad John Sommers, Esther Ruth Sommers, and Margaret Sue Sommers, the grandchildren of the testatrix, Lottie Sommers, each of whom are beneficiaries under a trust estate, created in their favor under the terms of the will of said Lottie Sommers, deceased, and each of said persons are- dev-isees and legatees under the will of the said Lottie Sommers, deceased, that each of said persons are minors without any legal guardian and each of said minors reside in Dallas County, Texas. * * *
“May Helen Sommers, May Dell Som-mers, Oscar Sommers, Jr., Clyde L. Som-mers, and Audrey May Sommers, each of whom are beneficiaries under a trust estate created in their favor under the terms of the will of said Lottie Sommers, deceased, and each of said persons are dev-isees and legatees under the will of the said Lottie Sommers, deceased; that each of said persons are minors without any legal guardian, and each of said minors reside in Washington County, Texas.”
Their first counter proposition to appellants’ assignments of error filed in this court reads as follows: “In a suit wherein an heir seeks to divest legatees and dev-isees of their interest under a probated will, the legatees and devisees should be made parties thereto.” Followed by this statement: “Appellants in their petition attempt to assert the invalidity of certain clauses in the will of the testatrix Lottie Sommers. They ask that the Court annul the entire will because of the asserted invalidity of certain of the provisions. None of the legatees or devisees were joined but only the independent executors were made parties. The executors, appellees, levelled a special exception to appellants’ petition complaining that neither the trustees nor the beneficiaries thereunder, nor the legatees or devisees were made parties defendant in this action. Each of said parties was, on the date this suit was filed, possessed of a vested interest or portion of the estate as shown by the probated will, a copy of which was attached to appellants’ petition.”
We quote the following from 3 Tex.Jur., § 111, p. 168: “It is an established principle of appellate procedure that the parties are restricted to the theory on which the case was tried in the lower court.”
In support of that announcement, the following is quoted, from the opinion of the Commission of Appeals in Boatner v. Providence-Washington Ins. Co., 241 S.W. 136, 140: “The law forbids the assumption of an attitude on appeal inconsistent with that taken at the trial, and on appeal litigants are restricted to the theory upon which the cause was prosecuted or defended in the court below.”
We quote further from 3 Tex.Jur., § 114, p. 172: “The parties on appeal may not present a theory in regard to defenses different from that interposed in the trial court by proper pleading and proof.”
That rule of decisions is a sufficient answer to the theory now advanced that the will did not create a trust.
Furthermore, we believe it manifest that the terms of the will definitely and specifically show an intention on the part of the testatrix to create a trust.
It is true that the record in this court of proceedings in the case of Anderson v.' Menefee, cited in our original opinion, does not show that the application for the annulment of the will filed in the probate court contains no allegation that the proceeding was under provisions of articles 3433, 3434, and 3435, Rev.St., but we inferred that such was true, since the proceeding *468was in accordance with the procedure there prescribed. That application was by Mrs. Menefee, one of the heirs of the testator, and living- in Oregon, joined by her husband, against Bernie L. Anderson and Morris E. Berney, as executors and trustees named in the will, arid also individually, and the other heirs of the testator residing in Tarrant county, Tex., were also made parties defendants and they filed pleadings in which they joined with Mrs. Menefee in her prayer for cancellation of the will. Whether or not they were necessary parties was never questioned or determined. Later a separate suit was instituted in the district court by Mrs. Mene-fee and her husband against the same defendants, attacking the will on the same grounds, and that suit was consolidated with the proceeding filed in the probate court and the merits of both were determined in the same judgment, which was affirmed on appeal. This statement with reference to that suit is made in the interest of accuracy to meet the criticism made by appellees of the reference thereto in our original opinion.
Further grounds for rehearing have been sufficiently answered in our original opinion, and will not be here discussed.
Motion for rehearing overruled.