Court Opinion

ID: 9834158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:20:58.050959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:12.185587
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellees have filed a motion for a rehearing in which they contend that Senate Bill No. 3 (e. 16), § 3, Acts 1934, 43d Leg., Second Called Sess. (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 3804 note), by its expressed terms in effect gave to the district judge of Goliad county jurisdiction to stay the execution of the order of sale issued out of the district court of Dallas county, and that during the effectiveness of said S. B. No. 3 (c. 16), article 4656, R. S. 1925, is suspended.
It is not clear to us that the Legislature intended by the provisions of section 3, of S. B. No. 3, to give to one district judge the power and jurisdiction to stay the execution of an order of sale issued out of another district court. The Legislature may have intended by this article that where there is a threatened foreclosure of a deed of trust lien, the judge of the district court of the county in which the land, or a part thereof, is located would have jurisdiction to hear an application for an injunction, and where a sale of real property under execution or order of sale is threatened, the judge of the district court out of which the execution or order of sale was issued would have such jurisdiction, but if by this section the Legislature intended that one district judge should have the power to stay for a period of time the execution or order of sale issued out of another district court, then such section is unconstitutional and void as being against public policy.
The calamity which results when two district courts attempt to handle the same subject-matter and parties at the same time is illustrated by the ease of Cleveland v. Ward, 116 Tex. 1, 285 S. W. 1063, 1069. It is said in that case:
“Jurisdiction is power to hear and determine the matter in controversy according to established rules of law, and to carry the sentence or judgment of the court into execution. * * *
“The Johnson county court, having first acquired jurisdiction, may exercise it to dis-_ pose of the whole subject-matter of the litigation and adjust all the equities between the parties, and is entitled to do so. * * *
“The reason of the abatement of the subsequent suit by the first, where the latter is filed in a court of competent jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction has attached, is that, when the suit is brought it is thereby segregated as it were from the general class to which it belonged, and withdrawn frotn the authority and jurisdiction of all other courts of coordinate power.”
In the same opinion we also find a quotation from Freeman on Judgments, which reads as follows:
“It seems impossible that two courts can, at the same time, possess the power to make *591a final determination of the same controversy between the same parties. If either has authority to act, its action must necessarily be exclusive, and therefore it is our judgment that whenever either the state or the national courts acquire jurisdiction of an action and the parties thereto, this jurisdiction cannot be destroyed, diminished, or suspended by one of the parties bringing an action in another court, and that any judgment or order of the latter court is void so far as it conflicts with any judgment or order of the court first acquiring jurisdiction.”
See, also, Dickerson v. Hopkins (Tex. Civ. App.) 288 S. W. 1103; Glenn v. Green (Tex. Civ. App.) 65 S.W.(2d) 386.
In this case we have an order of sale issued out of the district court of Dallas county, ordering the sheriff of Goliad county to sell certain real estate. We have an order of the district judge of Goliad county ordering him not to sell the same. If he obeys one order, he must disobey the other. The rule that gives to the first court taking jurisdiction of a cause of action the exclusive jurisdiction, is not only based upon the comity of courts, but is also based upon absolute necessity.
The ordet granting the stay of execution appealed from herein expired by its own terms on May 10, 1934, and the questions involved in this suit have become moot. Hamner v. Headrick (Tex. Civ. App.) 66 S.W.(2d) 1106. Accordingly, appellees’ motion for rehearing will be overruled and this cause dismissed at cost of appellees.