Court Opinion

ID: 9831463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:07:38.126704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:35.015536
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant seems to be laboring under the impression that, because the appellee sued upon a demand for $440 arising out of a contract, it could not recover unless it proved that exact amount to be due. Such is not the law. Appellee alleged that appellant had received as its agent $440, which it failed and refused to pay over to appellee. Proof that the amount actually so received by appellant and withheld from appellee was less than that alleged - would not defeat recovery by appellee. There was no uncertainty as to the amount alleged to be due, nor as to how such indebtedness arose. Tested by appellee’s pleading, its suit was for a liquidated demand arising out of a contract.
Appellant admitted its indebtedness in the manner and form, though not in the exact amounts, alleged, and claimed a set-off arising out of said transaction which reduced its indebtedness to appellee to $145.06. The evidence of appellee, which was not contradicted, showed this amount to be due on the transaction upon which the suit was brought. Had nothing else been pleaded by appellant, it is clear that appellee would have been entitled to a judgment for this amount. Appellant, in the third and fourth paragraphs of its answer, pleaded damages growing out of a tort in no wise connected with the transaction sued upon. The court properly sustained an exception to this portion of appellant’s answer.
Appellant suggests that, if appellee was entitled to recover only $145.06, the county court was without jurisdiction to try the case. Appellant did not allege that the amount sued for was fraudulently alleged in order to give the court jurisdiction. In the absence of such allegation jurisdiction will be determined by the allegations of the plaintiff’s petition, regardless of the fact that the evidence may show that the amount which the plaintiff is entitled to recover is *1001below the jurisdiction of the court. Ablowich v. Bank, 95 Tex. 432, 67 S. W. 79, 881.
For the reasons stated, appellant’s motion for a rehearing is overruled.
Motion overruled.