Court Opinion

ID: 9681179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:45:23.533788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:32.514050
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Griffin,
dissenting.
These are two original proceedings instituted in this court by James A. Elmore and Nina Ruth Elmore Morris, for writs of habeas corpus to release them from the restraint of an order by the Honorable Harold Craik, Judge of the 153rd District Court of Tar-rant County, entered on the 16th day of August, 1960, adjudging them in contempt of court. Both arose out of the alleged violation of the same order and are disposed of in one opinion.
These parties were formerly husband and wife but now divorced. While married they purchased from Leonards, a corporation, one 16-foot Lineo freezer, a camera kit and two arm chairs, and executed a note and chattel mortgage to secure the purchase money. Thereafter and subsequent to the time of the divorce, Leonards filed suit for its debt and foreclosure of its chattel mortgage lien. Both were made parties defendant. On the 5th day of May, 1960, judgment was rendered against Elmore for the balance due on his note, together with foreclosure of the lien and directing that an order of sale issue thereon. The judgment also contained the following recitation:
*591“Further that as between plaintiff and both defendants, the plaintiff has all right title and interest in and to the aforementioned Chattels and plaintiff is entitled to immediate possession thereof and both the said defendants are hereby ordered to deliver possession of said Chattels to the officer executing the hereinafter mentioned Order of Sale.”
Thereafter Leonards filed an affidavit for contempt setting forth the terms of the judgment alleging that an order of sale was issued; that both relators failed and refused to carry out the order of the court and deliver the chattels to the sheriff and praying that each be adjudged in contempt. After due notice and hearing, the court held both parties in contempt for their failure to obey the court’s order and assessed punishment as follows:
“The defendant, James A. Elmore, is hereby fined $100.00 and sentenced to three (3) days in jail for such contempt and the defendant Nina Ruth Elmore is hereby sentenced to serve three (3) days in jail and to remain in jail from day to day thereafter until she shall purge herself of such contempt by delivering the aforesaid chattels to the Sheriff or Constable, Precinct Number 1, Tar-rant County, Texas, and the said Nina Ruth Elmore shall not be released from jail until she shall have purged herself completely as aforementioned.”
The relators maintain that the contempt order is void by reason of the provisions of Rules 308 and 309, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; and, secondly, that there is no evidence of a contemptuous disobedience of a court order.
Admittedly, I think, the chattels were not of “especial value” to Leonards so as to authorize the order requiring the relators to deliver the property to the sheriff under the provisions of Rule 308, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. In Ex Parte Joe Douglas Prickett, 159 Texas 438, 320 S.W. 2d 1, we held that shares of stock commonly sold on the market did not have “especial value” in contemplation of that rule. But that case does not control here. It is to be distinguished on two grounds. First, these parties were ordered to deliver the property to the sheriff so that he could proceed to carry out his duties in connection with the order of sale. In the second place, the order was contained in the original judgment from which no appeal was taken, no objection levied thereto, and no motion filed for modification or for a new trial. The judgment became final according to its terms. Conceding that the court erred in respect to the order requiring the parties to deliver the *592property, the question is not whether the judgment in that respect was erroneous, but whether it was void.
A writ of habeas corpus is a collateral remedy and the judgment of a court upon a matter within its jurisdiction cannot be collaterally impeached. The rule is elementary that the writ cannot be used as a method of appeal or for the correction of errors in the trial court, but on the contrary, the inquiry is solely limited to the question of jurisdiction. Ex parte Testard, 101 Texas 250, 106 S.W. 319; Ex parte Smith, 110 Texas 55, 214 S.W. 320.
In Ex parte Kimberlin, 126 Texas 60, 86 S.W. 2d 717, the relator was adjudged in contempt for the violation of a restraining order. In that case the district court was in error in that the merchandise was still in interstate commerce and erroneously held relator in contempt because he confiscated the cigarettes after they were delivered to the purchasers. Neverthelss, the action of the trial court was an error of judgment upon the law and facts, and was not void because of lack of jurisdiction. If the case belongs to a class over which the authority of the trial court extends, jurisdiction attaches and is not lost because of an erroneous decision, however erroneous the decision might be. In Kimberlin it is further pointed out that if the restraining order included matters of doubtful validity it was clearly the duty of the relator to obey and seek a modification or dissolution.
The relators permitted the original judgment of foreclosure to stand, including as it did the positive order to deliver the property to the sheriff. They did not move for modification or for a new trial, or complain, or object to the judgment in any respect, nor did they take an appeal.
The general rule is that since the writ of habeas corpus is an extraordinary writ, it does not lie when relief may be had or could have been obtained by resort to another and timely remedy. Ex parte Travis, 123 Texas 480, 73 S.W. 2d 487, 489. This is also the rule in criminal proceedings. Ex parte Warfield, 40 Texas Cr. Rep. 413, 50 S.W. 933; Ex parte Roper, 61 Texas Cr. Rep. 68,134 S.W. 334.
In Ex parte J. Henry Spencer et al., 228 U.S. 652, 33 Sup. Ct. 709, 711, 57 L. Ed. 1010, that court very pointedly said:
“If defenses may be omitted at trials, rights of review omitted, and yet availed of through habeas corpus, the whole course of criminal justice will be deranged, and, it may be, defeated.”
*593No sound reason appears for the application of a different rule in civil cases. Ex parte Travis. I therefore would hold that the order of contempt is not void for want of jurisdiction on the part of the trial court.
I cannot agree with the contention of relators that there is not shown any evidence of a contemptuous disobedience of the court order.
Mrs. Elmore Morris testified that she and James Elmore separated as husband and wife on September 5, 1958; that when she left home on that morning for her place of employment these chattels were in the house which the couple occupied; that Elmore was in the house when she left and that upon her return that night the freezer had been removed; that she had not had it in her possession since, nor did she know where it was. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that a truck would have been required to carry away a 16-foot freezer she had made no inquiry of the neighbors nor had she reported the loss to the police or anyone else.
Elmore testified that when he departed on September 5th the chattels were in the house; that he did not take them nor authorize anyone else to move them out; that he did not know what had become of them. He further related that Mrs. Morris told him that she had let her brother have the camera. Quoting from his testimony :
“I also called and asked her [Mrs. Morris] about the merchandise that I went down and told Leonards to pick up. I asked her if they had been out, and she said yes. I asked her if she had let them have it. She said no; I said ‘why didn’t you?’ and she said, T will see you in hell before I will let them have it’.”
Under these facts the trial court was amply justified in concluding that one or the other or possibly both of these parties were guilty of deliberate falsification. Nor can it be said that the court was not warranted in finding that both parties were guilty of collusion in secreting the property so that the order of sale could not be carried out. He must have inferred that the principal responsibility lay with Mrs. Morris, for he committed her to jail until she purged herself of contempt, but only fined Elmore and remanded him to jail for a period of three days.
Relators rely on Ex parte White, 154 Texas 126, 274 S.W. 2d 542. But the facts in that case are not analogous to those here. It appeared in Ex parts White that the relator had parted with *594the possession of the property prior to the institution of the receivership proceedings and was unable to comply with the court’s order. This would be true even though the disposition of the property had been made for some fraudulent purpose. In our case it was not shown that the relators were unable to comply with the order of the court and from all the facts and circumstances I am of the firm opinion that the trial court was warranted in impliedly drawing the conclusion that compliance was not impossible. Ex parte Klugsberg, 126 Texas 225, 87 S.W. 2d 465.
Relator, Mrs. Morris, argues that under this order she must remain in confinement for the balance of her life, or at least, for an indefinite period. This argument is not well founded. Undoubtedly it was within the province of the court to conclude that she could either produce the property or disclose the reason for her inability to do so and in the latter event she can obtain relief.
Relators assert that if they are guilty of a criminal act in the disposition or concealment of mortgaged property there is an adequate remedy by prosecuting them under the criminal statutes. But that fact affords no basis for setting aside the contempt order. It is well settled that if one commits an act which he is enjoined from committing and if that act is a violation of the penal laws he may be punished for both the crime and the contempt. Ex parte Looper, 61 Texas Cr. Rep. 129, 134 S.W. 345; Sparks v. State, 42 Texas Cr. Rep. 374, 60 S.W. 246.
I would remand the relators to the custody of the sheriff.
Opinion delivered February 1,1961.
Rehearing overruled March 1,1961.