Court Opinion

ID: 9678908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:35:40.262146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:44.907841
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. Stephen M. Goldwait, a resident of Massachusetts, was lured into Texas by fraud, served with an arrest warrant, taken to a mental health facility, and, after a hearing, committed to that mental health facility. Goldwait’s estranged Texas relatives enticed him to accompany them to Texas so they could have him involuntarily committed. I do not believe the Probate Court No. 3 of Harris County had personal jurisdiction over Stephen M. Goldwait.
Patrick Goldwait1 testified he and his brother Chris flew to Boston to get their brother Stephen to come to Texas so they could commit him to a mental institution. At the time they initiated commitment proceedings in Texas, Stephen was a resident of Massachusetts, where he had lived for eight years.
Patrick admitted he lied to Stephen to get him to come to Texas:
Q: Telling Steve that you would come back to Houston to help him bring about....
A: I led Steve to believe that I was going to work with him to set the world free of illness.
Q: That was a lie.
A. Sure.
Patrick also admitted that Stephen was a resident of Massachusetts for more than eight years:
Q: Isn’t it true that Steve been [in Boston] for eight years away from your family while up there in Massachusetts, is that not correct?
A: He’s lived in Massachusetts for eight years. Yes.
Q: He has not been a resident of Harris County for all those years, is that not correct?
A: I believe that’s correct.
Although it is not relevant to the issue of jurisdiction, Patrick admitted that Stephen has family in the Boston area:
Q: And he has family still in the Boston area?
A: Yes.
Q: Who are they?
A: He has his ex-wife and his two children.
Stephen testified that he is estranged from his family in Texas and considers his children his only family. Stephen itemized the time he had spent with his Texas relatives over the last eight years: 20 hours with his brother Patrick, 30 hours with his brother Chris, two days with his mother, and no time with his two sisters.
Stephen testified about Patrick’s trip to see him in Boston and the reason Stephen agreed to come to Texas:
Q: When Patrick came to Boston did he tell you why he was there?
A: He — Pat misrepresented himself the entire time.
Q: What did he — why did he tell you he was there?
A: He came because he loves me. We were going to be together, just spend time together.
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Q: Did Pat at any time approach you in connection with you obtaining involun*437tary mental health service while you were in Boston on August 9?
A: Well, yes. While I was in Boston, yes.
Q: Tell the Court what basically happened in that conversation.
A: Pat — the first night we were in town, Pat got a hotel.... We stayed there for the night. The following morning when we got up to go to breakfast, he drove me to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. I said why were we at St. Elizabeth’s, which is a church owned by the Archdiocese of Boston run by my boss, the archbishop of Boston. And Pat suggested that we both check ourselves in. And I asked him why. He said because he had spoken with my mother and she thought it would be a good idea for both of us to go in and get cheeked out. I said, well, I’ve been checked out. I’m fine. I don’t need to. And he implored me that it would be a way to go. That’s what we should do. And I disagreed with him at that point. I said I didn’t feel it was necessary, and he said, fair enough. And then we later decided to return to Houston in the car trip. (Emphasis added.)
It is clear from Stephen’s testimony that Patrick first tried to trick him into a joint, voluntary mental health commitment in Boston; when that did not work, Patrick decided to trick him to come to Texas where he could have him involuntarily committed.
The majority holds that Stephen admitted he came to Texas for a vacation. I think the majority misreads the record. Stephen was under the impression that the trip to Texas was for a vacation to visit his family. He testified that Patrick knew he had to be back in Boston and could only take a two week trip. Instead of a vacation, on his second day in Houston, Stephen was arrested by a constable and taken to a mental health facility.2 After a hearing, Stephen was involuntarily committed.
The facts in this case are more outrageous than those in Wyman v. Newhouse, 93 F.2d 313 (2d Cir.1937), the seminal case on jurisdiction by fraud. In that case, Newhouse, a resident of New York, had been having an affair with Wyman, a resident of Florida. Id. at 314. Wyman implored Newhouse to visit her in Florida before she left the U.S.; she said she loved him; she claimed she was going to leave the U.S. and return to Ireland to take care of her sick mother. None of this was true. When Wyman landed at the airport in Florida, he was served with a lawsuit. After he returned to New York, a default judgment was taken against him. The Second Circuit held that a judgment procured by fraud lacks jurisdiction and is null and void. Wyman, 93 F.2d at 315.
There are no Texas eases on the issue of jurisdiction procured by fraud. See Roy W. MoDonald, Texas Civil Praotioe § 11:24 (Sharon Von Haesler ed., 1992 ed.). Professor McDonald considered it a “settled general rule” that, in a civil case, the court will not exercise a jurisdiction which rests upon a service of process on a defendant who has been decoyed, enticed, or induced to come within its reach by any false representation, deceitful contrivance, or wrongful device for which the plaintiff is responsible. Id. (quoting from Siro v. American Express Co., 99 Conn. 95, 121 A. 280 (1923)).
We should find the judgment void based on fraudulently procured jurisdiction.

. For convenience, I will refer to the Goldwaits by their first name.

. The only bit of humor in this otherwise sad story is that the constable initially thought he was there to arrest Patrick, and chased him around the house, while Patrick yelled that he was not the one, it was Stephen.