Court Opinion

ID: 9772812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:30:32.432485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:48.604433
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion, except I would also uphold the trial court’s ruling that the Motion to Transfer Venue was not timely made.
The docket notice on which this case appeared contained the following statement:
Both civil and criminal dockets will be called on the first day of each term of court. Civil at 9:00 A.M. and criminal at 10:00 A.M. All pre-trial motions must be presented on that day. Civil juries will be selected on the second Monday of the term and criminal juries on the third Monday. (Emphasis added.)
On the day of the docket call, Lone Star Steel Company announced ready for trial. On the day set for the jury trial, Lone Star Steel Company filed a Motion to Transfer Venue.1 Lone Star Steel Company did not ask leave of the trial court to file the additional pretrial motion, and it did not seek to withdraw its announcement of ready.
As stipulated by Lone Star Steel Company during the trial, the trial court observed in its order2 that the in-house attorney for *158Lone Star Steel Company had been aware of the basis for the Motion to Transfer Venue long before the deadline for pretrial motions and long before announcing ready for trial. The court denied the motion on the basis that it was not timely filed, that Lone Star Steel Company was not diligent, and that the motion was filed for the purpose of delaying the trial. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 15.063 (Vernon 1986) requires that a motion to transfer a case to another county of proper venue on the basis that an impartial trial cannot be had in the county in which the action is pending shall be “filed and served concurrently with or before the filing of the answer,. ...”
Tex.R.Civ.P. 258 does not state a specific time for filing a Motion for Change of Venue, but does require that such motions be “duly made.” To determine the meaning of “duly made,” we must consider Rule 258 in conjunction with other applicable rules. Tex.R.Civ.P. 248 directs that when a jury has been demanded, motions, as far as practicable, shall be heard and determined by the court before the day designated for the trial. Tex.R.Civ.P. 166 permits the trial court to establish a pretrial calendar and to take up at pretrial conference such matters as may aid in the disposition of the case.
We should not diminish the authority granted to the trial court by this rule. If parties are allowed to ignore these rules and the trial court’s pretrial orders authorized by the rules, delay and judicial inefficiency is sure to result. Allowing consideration of a Motion to Transfer Venue filed on the day of jury selection is in effect allowing that party an automatic postponement of the trial, so that the opposing party can have an opportunity to file an answer with supporting affidavits and so that evidence can be heard on this pretrial motion.
Only in the case of an abuse of discretion, which has not been shown in the present case, should a judge be reversed on such a ruling. Upon the filing of the Motion to Transfer Venue, Lone Star Steel Company had the burden of showing good cause as to why this motion could not have been filed in accordance with the trial court’s pretrial calendar, and this burden has not been met. A trial court can properly refuse to delay a jury trial in order to consider matters presented out of time or order when no good reason is shown to warrant the delayed presentation. Dyche v. Simmons, 264 S.W.2d 208 (Tex.Civ.App.-Fort Worth 1954, writ ref’d n.r.e.).
The case of the City of Abilene v. Downs, 367 S.W.2d 153 (Tex.1963), is very similar in many respects to the present case on the change of venue issue. I find, however, that in the Downs case it was not shown that the trial court directed all pretrial motions to be presented at the docket call, as in the present case. Furthermore, there had not been an announcement of *159ready by the defendant at a docket call a week prior to the trial in the Downs case; rather in Downs, the defendant filed its motion for change of venue prior to announcing ready for trial.
For the reasons set forth, I would hold that the trial court did not err in ruling that the Motion to Transfer Venue was not timely filed.

. Lone Star Steel Company also filed a Motion for Continuance at the same time.

. The language of the Corrected Order Overruling the Motion to Transfer Venue is as follows:
On this, the 12th day of January, 1987, came on to be considered the Defendant’s Motion to Transfer Venue and after hearing evidence and the argument of counsel thereon, the Court finds as follows:
That this case was filed on the 18th day of January, 1983; that since that time several motions for continuance have been granted *158by the Court, which motions were filed by one or both of the parties; that in December of 1986, a copy of the 76th Judical (sic) District Court docket was mailed to all parties, a copy of which is attached hereto and incorporated herein; the local rule for hte (sic) 76th Judicial District Court which is also contained in the docket sheet provides that all pre-trial motions be presented on the first day of each term; that on the 5th day of January, 1987, at 9:00 A.M., and a jury panel was duly summoned; that Jerry Jones, one of the outside counsel for the defendant, was involved in a protracted trial in the last part of 1986, and started interviewing witnesses the week of January 5, 1987; that at 8:55 A.M. on January 12, 1987, at a time at which the members of the panel were already seated or on their way to the courthouse, the defendant filed its Motion to Transfer Venue; that the events which the defendant alleges created the purported prejudice occurred several weeks prior to January 5, 1987; that William Osborn is an attorney who is employed as in-house counsel for the defendant at its plant in Lone Star, Morris County, Texas; that Mr. Osborn is one of the attorneys in this case and has been involved in its preparation and trial since its inception; that Mr. Osborn has been aware of the events which were the subject of defendant's Motion to Transfer Venue since the time they occurred and should have known, suspicioned, or with diligence could have discovered, that prejudice, if any, existed in Morris County against the defendant; that the defendant was not diligent, its Motion to Transfer Venue was not timely filed, and was filed for the purpose of delaying the trial of this case.
It is, therefore, ORDERED by the Court that the defendant’s Motion to Transfer Venue be and it is hereby denied.