Court Opinion

ID: 9829089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:59:03.803715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:57.144954
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
With much earnestness appellant stresses the contention that the judgment against the Goodman Drilling Company, the original defendant in the suit, was void for lack of jurisdiction of the court over .that defendant, in that there was no additional service of citation upon that defendant after the filing of the amended petition upon which the judgment was based.
The Goodman Drilling Company was not made a party defendant in this suit, and it seems to us to be too clear to require argument that the attack now made in this suit upon that judgment is a collateral attack.
That judgment recited due service upon the defendant, and it was by default. The court had already acquired jurisdiction over the defendant on tlie original petition, which was a suit for debt for oil sold, as was the suit presented by the amended petition.. The authorities seem to be uniform that under such circumstances that judgment cannot be held to be void and impeachable in a collateral proceeding on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction to render it. In addition to authorities already cited to support that conclusion, see Gibbs v. Scales, 54 Tex. Civ. App. 96, 118 S. W. 188, writ refused; Jameson v. O’Neall (Tex. Civ. App.) 145 S. W. 680, writ refused; San Bernardo Townsite Co. v. Hocker (Tex. Civ. App.) 176 S. W. 644; Robinson v. Monning Dry Goods Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 211 S. W. 535; Gerlaeh Mercantile Co. v. Hughes-Bozarth-Anderson Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 189 S. W. 784; Conner v. McAfee (Tex. Civ. App.) 214 S. W. 646, writ refused.
That appellant was duly served with a writ of garnishment on the original petition filed by the plaintiff in the case against the Goodman Drilling Company is not denied, but it is insisted that the amended petition set up a new cause of action, and that the court had no jurisdiction to render that judgment without the service of another citation, and for that reason, and, further, for the lack of service of another writ of garnishment on appellant, the court had no jurisdiction to render the judgment against it as garnishee. It thus appears that the attack on the judgment against appellant as garnishee was an attack on two grounds, first, that the judgment against the Goodman Drilling Company was void, and for that reason could not furnish a sufficient basis for the judgment against the garnishee, which ground is untenable for the reasons above cited; second, because of the absence of service of another writ of garnishment after plaintiff’s amended petition was filed in the original suit. There is no merit in the last contention, since the court had already acquired jurisdiction of the garnishee, and that objection involves errors of procedure only which would not render the judgment void, even though it could be said that it was voidable on direct appeal therefrom; especially since appellapt did not show any sufficient excuse for its failure to prosecute an appeal or writ of error from the judgment so rendered against it.
The authorities most strongly stressed by appellant, such as First National Bank of Houston v. Meyers (Tex. Civ. App.) 283 S. W. 265, are not in point, since those decisions were rendered upon direct appeal and not in independent suits to set aside the judgment.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.