Court Opinion

ID: 9834410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:33:49.278918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:16.887530
License: Public Domain

On Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing.
Our statement that the commission’s order of February 26, 1935, was sought to be set aside in this suit was predicated upon allegations in plaintiff’s original petition. A second amended original petition, filed July -11, 1935, omits this portion of appellant’s original cause of action, and seeks only to set aside the order of October 31, 1933, and to have declared void the judgment in cause No. 49529. This amendment, in our opinion, did not substantially affect the plea in abatement. The validity of the order of April 26, 1934, necessarily depends primarily upon that of the order of *267October 31, 1933. No attack was made upon that order until this suit was filed, on March 6, 1935. In the meantime Morten had operated a bus line under the order for a year and a half, and had obtained an amendment or extension of his permit in the order of April 26, 1934, nearly a year before this suit was filed. That order was attacked in plaintiff’s suit No. 55123, filed February 19, 1935. If appellant desired to question the validity of the October, 1933, order, which formed the basis of the April, 1934, order, the issue should have been raised in suit No. 55123, since a judgment confirming the April, 1934, order would necessarily confirm the October, 1933, order, the basis upon which it rested.
In a “Further Argument on Motion for Rehearing,” appellant for the first time contends that its attack on the judgment of the 126th judicial district court (cause No. 49529) was a direct and not a collateral one, for which reason, so it alleges, this suit was brought in the 126th and not in the 53d district court, in which cause No. 55123 is pending. This is apparently an afterthought. There is no allegation in appellant’s petition upon which to predicate a direct attack on the judgment, which could only be made by a plenary suit in equity. Every asserted ground of invalidity is an attack upon the inherent power of the court over the subject-matter, or the relief awarded. To sustain any one of these grounds would necessitate a holding that the judgment was void either in to to or in some particular. Such invalidity could be asserted in any proceeding; and would not require, as a prerequisite, setting aside the judgment in a direct proceeding. Additionally, it may be seriously questioned whether a suit in equity to set aside a judgment could properly be joined with a statutory suit to set aside an order of the Railroad Commission.
Various asserted holdings in our opinion are attacked on two grounds: (1) As being obiter,.in that the only issue presented by the appeal is the correctness of the trial court’s judgment sustaining the plea of former suit pending, and thereupon dismissing the suit; and (2) as being erroneous pronouncements of the law. The first ground may be conceded, at least as regards some of the holdings. It should be noted that as introductory to the portion of the opinion in which these holdings appear we said: “While perhaps not essential to the particular question here at issue.” It was necessary to discuss the issues involved in the several holdings, in order to point out the interrelation of the two pending suits. The holdings are not binding, however, as adjudications of the issues discussed.
We will consider the objections to these holdings, to the extent we think they merit attention.
That the judgment in cause No. 49529 was binding upon the commission and the North Texas to the extent that the court had power or jurisdiction over the subject-matter and to grant the awarded relief, we think there can be no serious question. The court clearly had jurisdiction to set aside the order appealed from, and to grant the injunction, which it did, restraining the commission (to quote from the judgment) “from interfering with the plaintiff (Morten) in the operation of a bus line over the route above referred to, save and except that the said Railroad Commission of Texas shall have the power to make such reasonable rules and regulations governing the operation of such bus line as may be promulgated by them for the operation of similar carriers.”
It should be noted in this connection that the portion of “the route above referred to,” between Dallas and Rhome, was the temporary route applied for by Morten, and not the route via Northwest Highway, as to which the judgment was silent. The judgment further describes the route as “thence to Wichita Falls.”
It may be conceded that the court did not have the power to grant Morten a permit to operate over that route; that being an exclusive function of the commission. Whether, under the judgment it became the duty of the commission to issue the permit, depends upon the scope of the review of the Commission’s order, and of the adjudication thereon. The court had not the power to pass upon controverted fact issues affecting the right to a permit. Railroad Commission v. Shupee (Tex.Civ.App.) 57 S.W.(2d) 295, affirmed 123 Tex. 521, 73 S.W.(2d) 505. An order denying a permit may be arbitrary for a variety of reasons, which do not affect the inherent right to the permit. Manifestly where an' order is set aside upon a ground of this cháracter, the application is reopened before the commission, to be heard'and determined upon its merits. Railroad Commission v. Rapid Transit Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 92 S.W.(2d) 261. Where, however, the .adjudication is upon the merits of the *268application, and the order denying the permit is set aside upon the ground that the applicant was entitled to the permit as a matter of law, nothing is left for the commission to pass upon, and the duty of granting the permit devolves upon the commission.
A proper construction of the judgment in cause No. 49529 and the extent of its binding effect is not involved in this appeal, and we therefore express no opinion thereon.
It is further urged that the order of October, 1933, was invalid as a compromise of the issues involved in cause No. 49529, because the commission had no power to make such compromise. As pointed out above, the trial court’s judgment did not purport to adjudicate Morten’s right to a permit over the Northwest Highway, which had not been constructed at the time the permit was denied. Under this state of facts, it may not be proper to construe the order as having effect only “to limit or diminish the scope of the judgment.” For reasons already stated, we express no opinion on this point.
• We quote appellant’s twenty-second assignment: “This court erred in holding that ‘independent of the latter’ (referring to the Nov. 1st, 1933, order) ‘the former’ (referring to the April 26th, 1934, order) ‘was in practical effect a nullity,’ because it is not within the province of this court to become the guardian of the appellee Mor-ten and to supervise the making of his applications for bus certificates nor grant him rights and franchises not applied for before the Railroad Commission, nor to enlarge franchises granted by the Railroad Commission; and because this issue was not properly before this court for its determination on this appeal.”
The point is made that “this court seemingly fails to distinguish between validity and value.” In other words, the April, 1934, order would leave in force the permit between Wichita Falls and Decatur, even though the October, 1933, order were stricken down. The obvious answer to this contention is that the law concerns itself with matters of practical substance, and not with mere abstractions — a distinction that is.all important. The permit to operate between Wichita Falls and Decatur, with the restriction that only passengers, originating or destined beyond Decatur might be transported, would be nothing more than a permit to operate empty buses between those points, absent the permit to operate between Decatur and Dallas. It could hardly be seriously questioned that in a suit by the state to compel operation under the permit, a complete answer would be the striking down of the October, 1933, order, regardless of the term employed to characterize the effect of the latter upon the April, 1934, permit.
As fundamental error appellant urges, for the first time in its motion, that dismissal was not the proper order upon sustaining the plea in abatement. This is correct. Haney v. Temple Trust Co. (Tex.Civ.App.) 55 S.W.(2d) 891 (error dismissed). Since the point was not called to the attention of the trial court, modification of the judgment in this regard will be at the cost of appellant.
Our former judgment is set aside. The trial court’s judgment is reversed, and the cause is abated and remanded to the trial court, with instructions to retain it suspended upon the docket until cause No. 55123 is determined, and thereupon to proceed in accordance with the final result of that suit.
Former judgment set aside; reversed and remanded, with instructions.