Court Opinion

ID: 9833686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:56:48.369683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:05.877985
License: Public Domain

On Motion of Appellee for Rehearing.
[3] Prom appellant’s pleadings in the county court it appeared that the amount in controversy between the parties was $114.58. It is obvious therefore that the county court did not have jurisdiction of the cause, unless it acquired it by appeal from a justice’s court That it so acquired jurisdiction thereof is not shown in the record before us otherwise than by an appeal bond filed in the justice’s court by appellee, from which it appears that appellant there recovered a judgment against appellee for the sum of $96.33. In American Soda Fountain Co. v. Mason, 55 Tex. Civ. App. 532, 119 S. W. 714, it was held that the fact that a county court had acquired jurisdiction of an appeal from a justice’s court must appear from the transcript the justice is required by articles 2396 and 2397, Revised Statutes 1911, to send to the county court when an appeal is taken from a judgment rendered by him. There, as here, the only evidence in the record before the Court of Civil Appeals of the rendition of a judgment in the justice’s court, and its nature, was recitals in a bond made on an appeal to the county court. With reference to this, the Court of Civil Appeals said in the Mason Case: “We cannot, therefore say from the evidence so specifically required by the law that the controversy between the parties to this suit ever proceeded to a final determination and judgment in the justice’s court. We do not think mere recitations in an original paper that the law requires to be sent up with the transcript can be made to supply the officially certified copy of the judgment and other entries which the statute provides. We are not allowed, as we understand the rule, to indulge presumptions in aid of the county court’s jurisdiction; but the same must be made to affirmatively appear.” On the authority of that case, we conclude it does not affirmatively appear from, the record before us that the county court acquired jurisdiction of this cause, and therefore that the motion for a rehearing should be granted, the judgment heretofore rendered by us set aside, the judgment of the county court reversed, and the case dismissed. It accordingly is so ordered.
On Motion of Appellee for Further Rehearing.
[4] The motion is overruled, but the judgment of this court as entered will be so corrected as to adjudge the costs of both this court and the county court against appellant instead of against appellee. On the record sent to this court the suit must be treated as one commenced by appellant in the county court, which did not have jurisdiction to hear and determine it, and which, therefore, should have dismissed it at appellant’s cost. Had that court pursued that course, and had appellant prosecuted an appeal from the judgment, it is clear that his court in dismissing the appeal should have adjudged the costs thereof against appellant. That the trial court, instead of rendering that kind of a judgment, adjudged that appellant take nothing by its suit, and that this court, instead of dismissing the appeal, reversed the judgment and dismissed the case, we think was not a reason why the costs should be adjudged against appellee. The judgment of the county court that appellant take nothing by its suit, it appears from the record before us, was void as an adjudication of the controversy between it and aiipellee, and appellant was as free as it was before that judgment was rendered to go into a court having jurisdiction thereof and have the controversy determined. Therefore the prosecution by it of the appeal to his court was not necessary for its' protection or the enforcement of any right it had. This being true, there is no reason why appellee should be made to pay the costs of that appeal.