Court Opinion

ID: 9643551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:32:41.474241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:01.357356
License: Public Domain

GREENHILL, Justice
(dissenting).
Rule 1 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure says in part that the purpose of the rules is to expedite the trial of cases with the least possible expense to the litigants; that the proper objective of the rules is to obtain a just, fair, and equitable adjudication of the rights of litigants; and that the rules should be given a liberal construction. Certainly this rule is intended to apply generally. What the majority opinion says, at least to me, is that Rule 1 does not apply to Rule 166-A which deals with summary judgments. With summary judgments, we are back to a strict and technical construction of the Rules of Civil Procedure.
The will in question was actually before the trial court in all of the ways set out in the Court’s opinion. We are nevertheless requiring the litigants and their counsel to expend the time and money to retry this case because of a matter about which there was actually no controversy in the trial court. In my opinion this Court should decide the merits of the case.