Court Opinion

ID: 9830318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:06:14.898373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:18.868999
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In a rather extended motion for rehearing appellee asserts that this court erred in holding that the main purpose of the suit was to perpetually enjoin defendants from disturbing plaintiff’s possession of the land. We did not so hold, but would not have been far from correct if we had held exactly as stated. What we did say was: “If the nature of the proceedings is to be determined from the prayer, it is an action to set aside the sheriff’s deed and to perpetually enjoin the defendants from dispossessing applicant by'the execution of a writ of possession.” The prayer of -the petition sustains our statement. The prayer is for a temporary injunction, temporarily restraining the execution of the writ of possession and that the injunction in ail things be made perpetual upon the final hearing. It is true that appellee prayed that the sheriff’s deed be set aside, but the deed is not attacked because of any informality or inherent vice. The prayer for setting aside the deed is based upon the allegations which attack the writ of possession and the judgment out of which the writ was issued. The suit is not, as the motion asserts, a direct attack upon the deed, -but the prayer for setting aside and canceling ¡'the- deed is- merely incidental relief. The action has none of the features or characteristics of a suit in trespass to try title nor is an action to remove cloud from title. If the court had set aside the deed upon the final 'hearing, appellee would not have had title unless the judgment against him had in some way been annulled and set aside.
Appellant further says that the judgment appealed from was a matter purely ancillary' to the main suit and that, if this court, had dissolved the temporary writ, it would have granted all the relief asked for by the appellants and all the relief they were entitled to by this appeal. The judgment complained of is not an ancillary matter. The appellee directly and affirmatively attacks the judgment as being insufficient to support an order of sale and as being long dormant and for that reason insufficient to support a writ of possession. With reference to the judgment, he alleges: “Which judgment provided that an order of sale issue, but did not provide) for any writ of possession and did not provide that the order of sale would have the force of a writ of possession. * * * No order of sale or any other writ of any kind was issued on said judgment until April 18, 1928. That said judgment had long been dormant at the time of issuance of said order of sale and would not support the order of sale and that the writ of possession above described is also issued out of said dormant judgment. * * * Said void writ of possession, which is neither supported by a valid, subsisting judgment nor by any order awarding a writ of possession in any judgment,” is the authority under which it is alleged the sheriff is threatening to put the defendants in possession of the land. The fact that the prayer does not specifically pray for relief against the judgment is immaterial, since the appellee does pray “for all such other and further remedies and reliefs, general and special, in law and in equity, to which he may show himself justly entitled.” '
We think the opinion states .the conclusions of the court in language that is reasonably clear and definite, but appellee persists in misconstruing the language and in asserting that we have made certain holdings which the language of the opinion in no sense supports. Appellee says that this court erred in holding that his contention that a dormant judgment would not support the execution and writ of possession is without merit, and that such holding is tantamount to a holding that an execution may issue on a dormant judgment, and further contends that the cases which we cite were decided long prior to the statute relating to dormant judgments It is true that article 3778, Revised Sfatutes, as it now exists, was originally enacted in 1895 (Acts 1895, p. 2), but the first statute, providing that the failure to issue execution within 12 months would have the effect of rendering the judgment dormant, is found in the Acts 1840, p. 172. This statute was repealed and re-enacted and the repealing act is found in the Acts of 1860, p. 117. The act was again amended in 1866 (Acts 1866, p. 118) and by the codifiers amended in 1879. The history of the act shows that it came to us originally from Paschal’s Digest, arts. 7005, 7007, and in the language in which it now appears it was re-enacted as article 2387 in the Statutes of 1911.
The 13 propositions advanced in the motion all discuss matters.which are merely incidental, if not foreign, to the real questions decided in disposing of this appeal. We dismiss*843ed the case because this action was filed in the district court of Hemphill county, and was, in fact, an attack upon a judgment rendered in Wheeler county. The above quotations from the petition clearly show that ap-pellee was attacking the judgment. It is true he did not attack the judgment as being void for any reason, but does insist that it is informal, in that it does not award a writ of possession, and, because it is dormant, will not support the writ. Appellee does not assert title in himself and cannot in the face of the judgment which divests him of title, and yet he seeks to hold possession of the land by a collateral attack upon the judgment and the process issued upon such judgment. He had no right to maintain any such action in any other county than Wheeler county, where the judgment was rendered. We held, and still believe, that the district court of Hemphill county had no jurisdiction of the matters involved in the suit, and could not grant either a temporary writ or permanently restrain the enforcement of the judgment by an action brought in Hemphill county. For that reason, we dismiss the case rather than remand it with instructions to the trial court to dismiss.
The motion is overruled.