Court Opinion

ID: 9681556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:52:35.301309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.427892
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
DIXON, Chief Justice.
When the original majority opinion was delivered I dissented without a written opinion. I still entertain the same views about this case, sol now say that appellant’s motion for rehearing should be sustained, the trial court’s júdgment should be reversed, and the cause remanded for another trial.
Appellee was the plaintiff in the trial court. His petition and, his motion for judgment on the pleadings are the only pleadings shown in the transcript of the record before us.
Appellee as plaintiff filed and. the court sustained a motion for a final jv,dgment on th.e pleadings. Therefore we may look only to appellee’s pleadings as a basis for the court’s judgment.
In his unsworn original petition filed February 8, 1954 appellee alleges four reasons why the court should set aside the Department’s order suspending his license. Here are the four reasons: (1) The affirmative findings on which the order was based were made by a licensed employee of the Department of Public Safety, not by, the Corporation Court of the City of Dallas; (2) the action of the Department was arbitrary and unreasonable in that “they did' not have sufficient facts before them to warrant the suspension of your plaintiff’s driver’s license”; (3) “In truth and in fact he is a careful and prudent driver, and there is no reason in law and in fact for the Department of Public Safety to suspend this plaintiff’s driver’s license”,; and (4) the statute, "Art, 6687b, V.A.C.S.' “is arbitrary and contrary to the laws of the State of Texas and the Constitution of the United States of America.”
It is obvious that none of the four reasons above listed, furnished a proper basis for the trial court’s action in sustaining appellee’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. The first three reasons raise fact issues which would require the introduction of evidence before they could furnish a basis for a judgment. Certainly the pleadings alone are not to be looked to as evidence of the truth of their own allegations on fact issues. 17 Tex.Jur. 356. The fourth reason is an erroneous conclusion of law, which did not and could not properly constitute the basis of the trial court’s judgment.
The, trial court in his judgment found as a fact that the action of the Department “* * * was based on an affirmative finding of the Corporation Court of the City of Dallas, Texas * * *” — a, finding which is in direct conflict with the first of the reasons given in appellee’s petition, in which appellee expressly alleges, “there was in fact no action tqken by the-*665Corporation Court in the City of Dallas in this matter.”
Appellee in his motion alleges another ground which is not only inconsistent with the allegations in his own petition, hut is also an erroneous conclusion of law. He points out that Art. 6687b refers to a “police court”. He then asserts in substance that the Dallas Corporation Court is not a police court, hence does not come within the terms of the statute. .This is evidently the reason relied on by the trial court for sustaining the motion for judgment on the pleadings, for the court says that the statute “specifically designates Tribunals for jurisdiction in such matters, the Corporation Court not being under such Tribunals designated.” (Emphasis supplied),
Appellant correctly argued under its one point on appeal that the words “police court” as used in the statute are synonymous with the words “corporation court” and that the trial court was in error in holding otherwise. That the terms are synonymous was the holding in the original majority opinion in this case, and on rehearing in the case of Prince v. Garrison, Tex.Civ.App., 248 S.W.2d 241. It follows that appellee was wrong in asserting the contrary conclusion in, his motion for judgment on the pleadings, and the trial court was in error in relying on such wrong legal conclusion as the basis -for sustaining the motion for judgment on the pleadings.
■ Nor can it be correctly said in support of the judgment that appellant is bound by Rule 67 V.R.C.P. in that by express or implied consent appellant tried the case oh issues not raised by the pleadings, for it must be remembered that the record shows that the court sustained appellee’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Therefore we may look only to the pleadings themselves, and not elsewhere beyond or outside the pleadings, for issues in support of the trial court’s decision;
Further, this is not a case in which we may affirm the judgment on the ground 'that the trial' court, though he' assigned the wrong reason, rendered a proper judgment. We cannot know whether the judgment is proper until we know, for example, whether in fact the affirmative findings were made by a licensed examiner of the Department of Public Safety, as alleged by appellee, and that fact issue, as well as other fact issues that may be injected into the case in a trial on the merits, cannot be determined until evidence has been heard by the trial court. Certainly such fact issues cannot be decided by looking only to appellee’s pleadings.
I agree with the original majority opinion that it is the intention of Art. 6687b, when properly interpreted, to place affirmative fact finding responsibilities on the judge of the police court (corporation court) as an administrative agent, not on the police court (corporation court) itself as a judicial tribunal. Ordinarily it will be presumed that the j.udge in making the affirmative- findings, did act in his capacity as an administrative, agent, and not as a court, The original majority opinion is in error, as I see it, when said majority opinion assumes just the opposite : That the affirmative findings in this case were made by the Dallas Corporation Court as a judicial tribunal, not by the judge as an administrative agept. Certainly appellee’s pleadings do not furnish a basis for any such assumption.
But that question too could' become a fact' issue in a trial on the merits. It might then be shown by. a preponderance of the evidence that the affirmative findings wére in fact attempted to be made by the police court (corporation .court) , as a judicial tribunal as part of its judicial functions, not by. the judge acting simply as an ad-piinistrative agent. But that was not the issue on which this case was tried and decided, nor did the question enter into the trial so far as the record shows.
In any event, in my opinion the judgment now before us ought' not to be allowed to stand; for there is no basis for the trial court’s action in sustaining" ap-*666pellee’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Judge Cramer has indicated that he concurs with me as to the disposition'which should be made of this appeal.
Therefore appellant’s motion for rehearing is sustained, the judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the cause is remanded for another trial.