Court Opinion

ID: 9665037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:37:15.950034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:12.398557
License: Public Domain

•On Second Motion for Rehearing
Prior to our acting on the first motion for rehearing the Honorable Paul Peurifoy, Judge of the 95th District Court, informed us that soon after the delivery of our original opinion he entered an order overruling the contest to plaintiff’s affidavit of inability to pay costs. As that was all that relator sought, we stated in our opinion on the first motion for rehearing that the matter raised in the application for mandamus might be considered moot.
We are now informed that since we overruled the first motion for rehearing Judge Peurifoy has vacated his order overruling the contest to plaintiff’s affidavit of inability to pay costs. Judge Peurifoy apparently entered the order overruling the contest under the impression that the writ itself had actually been issued out of this Court, which it had not. In view of this development the matters raised in the application for mandamus are not moot.
Respondents in their second motion for rehearing say that relator’s application for mandamus should be dismissed for want of necessary parties—the Court Reporter and the District Clerk being the missing necessary parties. In support of their contention respondents cite us the case of Caldwell v. Boyd, District Judge, Tex.Civ.App., 146 S.W.2d 296.
We do not disagree with the holding in the cited case. We are convinced, however, that it has no application whatever to the facts in the case now before us.
.In the case of Caldwell v. Boyd, supra, the relator set out two different counts in his application for a writ of mandamus: He asked (1) that the respondent (the trial judge) be commanded to set aside his order sustaining the contest to the affidavit of inability to pay costs; and (2) that the trial judge also be required to direct the District Clerk and the Court Reporter respectively to prepare the transcript and statement of facts without charge. Under such, circumstances we can understand that the District Clerk and the Court Reporter might be considered necessary parties by reason of the said second count.
*238The application now before us is quite different from the one considered by the Court in Caldwell v. Boyd, supra. In this case only the first count is included in the application. We are asked only to issue a writ to the District Judge requiring him to enter an order overruling the contest of respondents to relator’s affidavit. We are not asked to go further, as was the Court of Civil Appeals in the cited case, by ordering the trial court to direct the District Clerk and Court Reporter to prepare the record. We doubt that they would even be proper parties unless the record showed that they had been asked to prepare the record and had refused to do so. Stark v. Dodd, Tex.Civ.App., 76 S.W.2d 865.
At the time we acted on the first motion for rehearing we had before, us a request from Judge Peurifoy for additional instructions. We declined to give such additional instructions by saying that we doubted that the question suggested by his request was before us for determination and we would go no further than to comment.
The writ of mandamus we are granting ⅛ this case will direct that the trial court enter an order overruling the contest to relator’s affidavit of inability to pay costs, and authorizing relator to appeal on his affidavit of inability to pay costs. We shall go no further, but shall leave it to the trial judge to comply with the law without further instructions from us so far as this application for mandamus is concerned.
Relator has filed an answer to respondents’ second motion for rehearing. In this answer relator insists that the District Clerk and the Court Reporter are not necessary parties in this action, and cites authorities in support of his contention. However, in his answer relator, in the alternative, moves that the District Clerk and the Court Reporter be made parties. As we agree with relator that the two persons named are not necessary parties, we think that relator’s motion to make them parties should be overruled.
Respondents’ second motion for rehearing is overruled; relator’s motion to make the District Clerk and the Court Reporter parties is also overruled.