Court Opinion

ID: 9778997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:31:42.349931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:18.785840
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
Ground Ten of the motion may be overruled for the reason that T.R. 84 has been amended and the requirement of pleading in due course formerly made by that Rule has been eliminated. See McDonald’s “Texas Civil Practice”, Sec. 7.03. However, the record of the proceedings in the trial court indicates that the plea in abatement was tried on its merits without objection by appellants and under the former practice this operated as a waiver of a departure from due order of pleading. See Capetillo v. Burress & Rogers, Tex.Civ. App., 203 S.W.2d 953. Too, on the issue of res adjudicata, the plea in abatement raised matter which operated in bar of the husband’s suit.
We adhere to our construction of inter-venors’ pleading. Award of custody to them is conditioned on the grant of a divorce in the future, obviously in this very suit, not only according to their prayer but also-according to the first paragraph of their pleading. Intervenors’ pleading exhibits no intention to litigate custody with a divorced parent to whom custody had been awarded by judicial decree. Of course, under this, construction any rights which intervenors might have against appellee for the custody of the child are not involved in this suit and have not been adjudicated by the judgment under review; and this is in accord with said judgment which *226shows that the intervention was dismissed as a consequence of the dismissal of the husband’s suit and was not adjudicated on the merits.
We'have not undertaken to consider what rights the husband might assert in the wife’s suit; such questions are not involved in this appeal. As regards appellants’ argument that the first judgment in the wife’s suit could only be set aside by a bill of review, it seems to us that if this argument is right the judgment could not be collaterally attacked in the present suit and would, therefore, stand as a bar of this suit until it actually had been set aside.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.