Court Opinion

ID: 9827799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:51:42.75575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:30.185699
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants seem to have construed the language in our opinion, granting appellee’s motion for rehearing and affirming the judgment of the trial court, as stating our holding that plaintiff below in the county court set up a new cause of action. By the using of the language, “and being further of the opinion that as the cause originated in the justice court and no new cause of action could have been set up in the county court, have further concluded that this court erred in sustaining appellants’ motion for rehearing,” was meant that in the instant case, unlike that of Railway Go. v. Graves, cited, we were not permitted, in order to support the contention that the jurisdiction was in the county where suit was filed, to indulge the presumption that by amended pleadings, the plaintiff in the county court presented a new cause of action, and that hence the amended statute would apply.
In holding that the amendment to article 1903, Y. S. Civ. Stats., Acts 35th Leg. p. 388, was operative at the time of this trial, though it went into effect after the suit was filed, we do not think we were inconsistent, because the majority also held that the amendment to subdivision 4, art. 2308, did not apply to actions pending at the time said last mentioned amendment became operative. The amendment to article 1903 merely deals with the question of evidence, the force and effect to be given to verified pleas of privilege, and, as pointed out in our opinion, •statutory amendments affecting rules of evidence apply to pending actions as well as to future ones, unless the contrary be indicated by the terms of the act, while amendments affecting remedies and procedure are given a prospective application only, unless the retroactive application be clearly shown by the act itself.
In urging that the amendment to subdivision 4, art. 2308, supra, should be held to apply to pending actions, appellants cite the Supreme Court decisions of Spence v. Fenchler, 107 Tex. 443, 180 S. W. 601, and Cox v. Robison, 105 Tex. 426, 150 S. W. 1149.. In the first ease cited Judge Hawkins, speaking for the Supreme Court, uses this language:
“However, jurisdiction may be conferred upon a court by necessary implication as effectually as by express terms. It is an elementary rule of construction that, when possible to do *718so, effect must be given to every sentence, clause, and word of a statute, so that no part thereof be rendered superfluous or inoperative.”
In Cox v. Robison Judge Phillips says:
“It is plainly to be inferred that it was these conditions and circumstances that brought the subject to the attention of the members of the body. * * * There is nothing in the proceedings that suggests that the convention intended this ordinance to have a prospective effect, while every evidence furnished by the journal is consistent with a purpose to give it a curative character and use.”
Appellants also cite Mutual Film Corp. v. Morris & Daniel, 184 S. W. 1062, by this court; People v. City of Syracuse, 128 App. Div. 702, 113 N. Y. Supp. 707; Aultman & Taylor Mach. Co. v. Fish, 120 Ill. App. 314, and other cases upon this point; but the majority see no reason for changing their views heretofore expressed, and accordingly appellants’ motion for rehearing is overruled.
Justice BUCK dissents as before.