Court Opinion

ID: 9771369
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:40:06.595338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:28.855003
License: Public Domain

BARROW, Justice
(concurring).
The record shows that the alleged defamatory statement in which appellee, Enrique G. Gonzalez, was charged with having been guilty of a fraud, was taken *548from plaintiffs’ original petition. That after appellee answered, the plaintiffs voluntarily took a nonsuit as to appellee, and the court entered a judgment dismissing ap-pellee from the cause. Thereafter the case was tried upon an amended petition against Barrera alone. In my opinion, when that order was made, Gonzalez ceased to be a party to the suit, and the pleading, so far as any charge against him was concerned, ceased to be a part of a judicial proceeding. Therefore, the statement and charges therein made were not privileged under Article 5432, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.Stats. Sutton v. A. H. Belo & Co., Tex.Civ.App., 64 S.W. 686; Houston Chronicle Pub. Co. v. Mc-David, Tex.Civ.App., 173 S.W. 467.
I concur in the affirmance of the judgment.