Court Opinion

ID: 9834280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:27:45.274088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:13.511913
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
By an agreed correction of a clerical mistake in the record it is made to appear that execution upon the judgment owned by ap-pellee, Mrs. Stella H. Sanger, wus issued May 5, 1930, a few months after the judgment was rendered, instead of “May 5, 1939”, as appeared from the record originally. Hence, we withdraw what has been said in the original opinion regarding the dormancy of the judgment. The judgment was not dormant and there was evidence that it was unpaid.
In addition to the burden upon appellee, under exception 4, to prove that Franklin Life Insurance Company had its place of residence in Dallas County — a fact of which as we have said there was, in our opinion, no evidence — appellee had the further burden of establishing each and every element of a cause of action against the Franklin Life Insurance Company. The only such cause of action, if any, alleged which could with any plausibility be contended to be “a joint cause of action against the two defendants, or a cause of action against the resident defendant so intimately connected with the cause of action alleged against the nonresident defendant that the two may be joined under the rule intended to avoid a multiplicity of suits” (Stockyards Nat. Bank v. Maples, 127 Tex. 633, 95 S.W.2d 1300, 1304) was the action for discovery. If we may assume the pleading was sufficient, there was no evidence of any cause of action of any kind against the resident defendant.
The statement of facts comprises 10 pages. The evidence insofar as it relates to the Franklin Life Insurance Company, with the exception next to be noted, deals exclusively with the question of its having an office and agency in Dallas County and in McLennan County. The exception is that appellant’s son testified that he had heard that W. V. Crawford, deceased, had insurance with the Franklin Life Insurance Company but “didn’t have any details about dates and amounts and beneficiaries and so on.” Appellant alleged that Crawford died during the year 1938. The suit was tried November 4, 1940. There was not a single fact in evidence tending to support a reasonable belief that the Franklin Life Insurance Company then owed anything to the estate of W. V. Crawford, deceased, applicable as payment upon said judgment. Under the evidence considered most favorably to appellant, the action for discovery was shown to be no more than “a mere fishing expedition.” Dallas Joint Stock Land Bank v. State, 135 Tex. 25, 137 S.W.2d 993, 995. If venue, under exception 4, may be sustained by such evidence, then it is not true that the plaintiff must allege and prove a cause of action against the resident defendant. An exception to that rule would have to be recognized to the effect that in an action in the nature of a bill of discovery it is sufficient merely to allege a cause of action. *121We are unable to see that such an exception should be recognized.
It is our conclusion that the motion for rehearing should be overruled and it is accordingly so ordered.