Court Opinion

ID: 9827542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:38:48.149915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:33.138080
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
A further study of the record convinces us that the judgment of the lower court should be reversed as to all parties and remanded for a new trial as to all parties, but without instructions to the lower court to dismiss the cause from its docket; that issue to be decided by the lower court on the record as presented to it on a new trial. The ambiguity of the judgment in the following respects requires this amendment to our original order. The lower court found: “1. That plaintiffs in open court abandoned their cause of action against Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County, Texas and the members of the Commissioners Court of said County to the extent of their claim for damages in the sum of $30,000.00 for .breach of contract.”
Following this finding, the court made the following decrees:
(a) “It is Further Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed by the court that the plaintiffs take nothing on their claim against the defendants Commissioners Precinct No. 2 and the members of Commissioners Court of Montgomery County, Texas, for damages in the sum of $30,000 for alleged breach of contract.”
And (b) “It is Further Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed by the court that the plaintiffs have and recover of and from Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County, Texas, the sum of $15,000, being one per cent compensation provided for in the above described contract for the sale and purchase of said bonds, the same to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of said bonds.”
And again: (c) “It is Further Ordered, Adjudged^ and Decreed by the court that the plaintiffs do have and recover of and from the defendants and each of them the remaining $1,345,000. Road Bonds of Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County, Texas, described in plaintiffs’ First Amended Original Petition, and the defendants Lockhart and Sheppard are hereby ordered to deliver ail of said bonds in their possession to the Clerk of this Court to be held in the registry of this court.”
And (d) “It is Further Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed by the court that cross-plaintiffs, Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County, Texas, and the members of the Commissioners Court of said County, in their official capacity, recover of and from the defendants, Lockhart and Sheppard said road bonds to be delivered to the Clerk and into the registry of the court and to be delivered by the Clerk to Plaintiffs as herein decreed.”
As against appellants’ plea in abatement, all orders effecting the custody, control, and ownership of the bonds, as such orders affect all parties, must be reversed.
In one portion of the judgment copied above, it was decreed that “the plaintiffs take nothing on their claim against the defendants Commissioners Precinct No. ■2,” and in another portion of the judgment it was decreed that “the plaintiffs have and recover of and from Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County the sum of $15,000.00.” The judgment was so entered as between plaintiffs and Commissioners Precinct No. 2 after plaintiffs, as the court found, had “in open court abandoned their cause of action against Commissioners Precinct No. 2 of Montgomery County.”
In all other respects the motions for rehearing are overruled.