Court Opinion

ID: 9830459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:13:40.261997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:22.871215
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant, among others, assigns the following as errors against our order affirming the judgment of the lower court:
“(1) We submit the Supreme Court must have unintentionally overlooked the effect the death of the defendants J. M. and Lee Barrow had on the enforcement of the judgment and order of sale in question.”
It would be a violent assumption on our part that the Supreme Court “overlooked” the legal effect of the facts expressly found by it, and upon which its judgment was based. We cannot grant a rehearing on this proposition.
 Again he says:
“(2) However, if it was the intention of said honorable court to order the sale of these dead men’s estates, then we most urgently insist that the Supreme Court overstepped its jurisdiction.”
The construction of article 3723, quoted in our original opinion, is clearly within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and, following the judicial history of this article, as construed by the courts of this state, it would seem that it may have meant one thing at one time and another thing at another time. This is illustrated by what the court" said in Fleming v. Ball, 25 Tex. Civ. App. 209, 60 S. W. 985, on review of the authorities construing this article:
“A review of the Texas cases shows that the point at issue was first passed upon in the case of Conkrite v. Hart, 10 Tex. 140, and it was held that a sale of land made after the death of a defendant, under an execution issued before his death, was void, and that no title was acquired thereby. That decision was affirmed in Robertson v. Paul, 16 Tex. 472; Boggess v. Lilly, 18 Tex. 200; Chandler v. Burdett, 20 Tex. 42; McMiller v. Butler’s Adm’x, Id. 402; Emmons v. Williams, 28 Tex. 778; Cook v. Sparks, 47 Tex. 28; Meyers v. Evans, 68 Tex. 466, 5 S. W. 66; Schmidtke v. Miller, 71 Tex. 103, 8 S. W. 638; Northcraft v. Oliver, 74 Tex. 162, 11 S. W. 1121; Hooper v. Caruthers, 78 Tex. 432, 15 S. W. 98.
“The decision in Conkrite v. Hart was first questioned in Webb v. Mallard, 27 Tex. 83, where Justice Moore expressed a doubt as to its correctness. In Taylor v. Snow, 47 Tex. 462, the decision in Conkrite v. Hart, is attacked and overruled, through a decision rendered by the same judge who wrote the opinion in Webb v. Mallard. In Cain v. Woodward, 74 Tex. 549, 12 S. W. 319, it was held that Taylor v. Snow *258had overruled the previous decisions on the subject, and it was concluded that-a sale of land made under an execution issued after the death of á sole defendant was merely voidable. The opinion was delivered by the commission of appeals, and adopted by the Supreme Court. It is interesting to note that in the same volume (page 162), in the case of Northcraft v. Oliver, it is said by the Supreme Court: ‘The evidence in this case shows that the execution under which defendants hold was issued after A. T. Oliver’s death, and for that reason was void.’ The last decision on the subject is found in Hooper v. Caruthers, 78 Tex. 432, 15 S. W. 98, where, after reviewing the Texas authorities, it is said: ‘Giving technical effect to a judgment, the case of Taylor v. Snow was probably correctly decided on its facts; but we are of the opinion that the law is correctly stated in the other cases referred to, and that a sale made under execution against a deceased person after his death, he being alive at the time judgment was rendered, is void in the sense that it is wholly inoperative to pass title to or against any one, and therefore may be attacked directly and collaterally.’ It is expressly provided in article 2332, Sayles’ Civ. St., which was enacted in 1853, that, ‘where a sole defendant dies after judgment for money against him, execution shall not issue thereon, but the judgment may be proved and paid in due course of administration.’ In this case the time had elapsed in which administration could be had on the estate of J. P. Spradlin, and appellants should have sued the heirs fqr their debt or to revive the judgment that had been abated by the death of the defendant. McCampbell v. Henderson, 50 Tex. 610; Low v. Felton, 84 Tex. 378, 19 S. W. 693.”
For an additional discussion of this article see Liplincott v. Taylor (Tex. Civ. App.) 135 S. W. 1070. The facts of this case are clearly distinguishable from the facts of any reported case cited by appellants. The law on these facts was before the Supreme Court. It was clearly within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to apply the facts of this case before it to the article cited and to determine the legal effect of this article as limited by the facts under consideration. By making the order in question, the legal effect of the facts was determined as effectively as if the Supreme Court had discussed them with specific application to the article in question. If the. order was erroneous, the injured party was given his day in court, and, having failed to assign error in the Supreme Court in the legal and orderly manner provided by law, he cannot now complain. As said by Judge Hemphill in Horan v. Wahrenberger, 9 Tex. 320, 58 Am. Dec. 145, quoting from Elliott v. Peirsol, 1 Pet. 328, 340 (7 L. Ed. 164):
“Where a court has jurisdiction it has a right to decide every question which occurs in the cause; and whether its decision be correct or otherwise, its judgment, until reversed, is regarded as binding in every other court.”
We think our case of Harris v. Hamilton, cited in the original opinion, is directly in point, and, since our holding in that case was challenged by a pertinent application for writ of error, which was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, it is conclusive on this proposition.
Again he says:
“(3) The Court of Civil Appeals erred in affirming the judgment of the district court, because it is apparent from the face of the record in this case that the order, judgment, and mandate of the Supreme Court, modifying the judgment'of the district court and authorizing the sheriff of Chambers county to' carry out the order of sale issued in said cause No. 551 on March 21st, 1905, was not observed or complied with by the clerk of the district court and said sheriff, but the -same was disregarded, and an alias order of sale was issued, levied,- and said land sold thereunder, the issuance of which was contrary to the judgment of the Supreme Court, and was prohibited by article 3723 of the Revised Statutes 1911, and the sale made thereunder through which appellees claim title was void; hence judgment should have been in favor <5f defendant (appellant here).”
We do not think the mandate of the Supreme Court should be given the effect contended for by this proposition. It was clearly the intention of the Supreme Court in making the ordér in question to authorize the plaintiff to enforce its- judgment. If that could not be done under the order of sale originally issued, then the intent of the order was given effect by the issuance of the alias order of sale and its -orderly execution.
Closing their motion for rehearing, counsel for appellants say:
“The opinion rendered by your honors is, so far as,we have been able to determine from a careful reading of the, authorities, not only squar'ely against the case law of this state, but is in direct conflict with the statutes cited. Wherefore appellant respectfully prays that the court reconsider this case, and, on rehearing, that the judgment of the district court be reversed, and judgment here rendered in favor of appellant, or that the case be remanded, with proper instructions.”
We have not undertaken to review the authorities construing article 3723, nor to apply such authorities to the facts of this case. Our order affirming this case is based solely and alone upon our construction of the mandate of the Supreme Court in Massillon Engine & Thresher Co. v. Barrow (Tex. Com. App.) 231 S. W. 368. Since, as we understand the decisions construing judgments of a superior court, our authority is limited to the construction and enforcement of the -judgment in that case, after giving due consideration to appellant’s very able argument, it is our order that the motion for rehearing be in all things overruled.