Court Opinion

ID: 9769412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:50:02.317703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:03.119942
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON SECOND MOTIONS FOR REHEARING
Appellant Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc. and appellee Ross Campesi have filed second motions for rehearing. In Campesi’s second motion for rehearing, he again complains that the trial court erred by failing to calculate prejudgment interest due him after September 1, 1975, at the rate of nine per cent per annum.
As stated in the above opinion, the trial court entered its final judgment awarding Campesi a net recovery of $68,173.64. In determining this net amount, the trial court awarded Campesi the principal amount withheld by the Association ($129,349.50) together with prejudgment interest on that amount computed from the date of withholding until the date judgment was rendered ($26,516.64), and deducted from the sum of Campesi’s awards, the Associations principal amount of damages as found by the jury ($87,692.80). On appeal, we sustain the Association’s contention that the trial court erred by failing to allow as an offset the Association’s damages as found by the jury from the principal amount due Campesi pursuant to the summary judgment recovery before calculating the prejudgment interest due Campesi upon the remaining balance alone. Pursuant to our holding, Campesi became entitled to receive prejudgment interest on the balance of $41,656.70, and not $129,349.50. Thereafter, it became incumbent upon this Court, pursuant to Rule 434, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, to enter the judgment the trial court should have entered in this respect.
Until his motion for rehearing, we could not determine with absolute assurance what rate of interest the trial court had utilized to compute the prejudgment interest sum. We awarded interest computed on an annual rate of six per cent pursuant to Tex.Rev. Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5069-1.03 (1971) on the basis that Campesi (pursuant to a written contract), was seeking to recover the sum of $129,349.50 which the Association wrongfully withheld on March 15, 1975, from a total *867sum of $388,713.06 which the Association admitted was otherwise due and payable to Campesi at that time in accordance with the terms of the written marketing agreement.
The trial court’s judgment awarded the specified sum of $26,516.64 as prejudgment interest without indicating the annual interest rate it utilized to compute such sum. The record shows that in Campesi’s motion for summary judgment, he prayed for recovery of prejudgment interest “at the legal rate.” In his first supplemental petition and supplemental motion for summary judgment, he prayed for prejudgment interest at the rate of six per cent. On November 12, 1976, the trial judge entered the order granting Campesi partial summary judgment without specifying the actual rate at which prejudgment interest should be calculated. About five months after the entry of this order (April 5, 1977), Campesi filed his second amended original petition which, for the first time, prayed for prejudgment interest to be calculated at the rate of six per cent until September 1,1975, and at a rate of nine per cent thereafter until the date of judgment.
The active pleadings as of the date the summary judgment was entered prayed for interest at the rate of six per cent or “at the legal rate.” “Legal interest” is defined in Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5069-1.01(b) (1971) as “that interest which is allowed by law when the parties to a contract have not agreed on any particular rate of interest” and this rate is six per cent by statute. See Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5069-1.03 (1971).
Now Campesi contends that: 1) the trial court’s interest award in the sum of $26,-516.64 was computed by utilizing a rate of six per cent per annum until “August 30 (sic), 1975” and nine per cent from September 1, 1975, until the date of judgment; 2) the Association waived its right to complain of the nine per cent rate utilized by the trial court to compute the interest due from September 1, 1975, until the date of judgment, because it failed to make a proper assignment of error on appeal; and 3) this Court erred by changing the rate of interest as utilized by the trial court without a proper assignment of error.
It is a fundamental rule that the judgment of the trial court must conform to the pleadings, the evidence and verdict, if any. See Rule 301, T.R.C.P. The summary judgment pleadings requested interest at the rate of six per cent, and it was error for the trial court to award interest at a higher rate. In reversing that portion of the trial court’s judgment based on proper assignments of error before us, and in entering the judgment the trial court should have entered pursuant to Rule 434, we entered a correct judgment as to that portion of the judgment that was necessarily reversed. In so entering such corrected judgment, this Court should not be relegated to repeating the errors made by the trial court, particularly where, as here, the error committed was not evident on the face of the record. Our entry of the judgment the trial court should have entered incidentally corrected the trial court’s error as to interest.
There is still another basis for changing the error. Where such error is apparent on the face of the record, courts, in analogous situations, have found fundamental error to be present, particularly where the judgment entered violates a statute. See McDaniel v. Miller, 317 S.W.2d 546, 549 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1958, no writ), disapproved on other grounds, Phillips Petroleum Company v. Stahl Petroleum Company, 569 S.W.2d 480 (Tex.Sup.1978); ICT Insurance Company v. Gunn, 294 S.W.2d 435, 444, 445 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1956, writ ref’d n. r. e.); South Texas Lloyds v. Bryant, 137 S.W.2d 112 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1940, error dism’d); Fort Worth & D. C. Railway Co. v. Osborne, 26 S.W. 274, 275 (Tex.Civ.App.1894, no writ); Stephenson v. Luttrell, 160 S.W. 666, 668 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1913, rev’d on other grounds, 107 Tex. 320, 179 S.W. 260, 262-263 (1915). (We note that the Stephenson case may have been decided on the basis of error apparent on the face of the record prior to the amendment of an enactment of Rule 374 and not fundamental error).
*868Having considered all the points of error in both motions for rehearing and deciding that we have now properly disposed of the appeal in this case, the motions are accordingly overruled.