Court Opinion

ID: 9829918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:43:48.798727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:08.902429
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[5] Appellants urge error in our original opinion in the following words:
“Because the court erred in rendering its judgment of afiirmanee in this cause, in that the writer of the opinion evidently failed to grasp the main matter complained of by the appellant, or else the attorney for the appellant, failed to make himself dear on the subject. The appellant assigned error on account of the court permitting appellee to change its petition from a ‘verified account ‘petition’ to a cause of action based up_on a written contract, and then, proceed to trial on its amended petition without additional citation or time to prepare for trial under the new made issues as presented by appellee.”
We do not think that plaintiff below set up a cause of action in its first amended petition different from that alleged in its > original petition. Defendants excepted to the original petition on the ground that the “same alleges and pleads an open account, while on the face of said pleading it shows to have been an isolated transaction and not a proper case for an itemized account, and not a transaction in which a verified open account could be accepted as proof of any indebtedness.” The court sustained this special exception, and overruled plaintiff’s motion to strike out same. Whereupon plaintiff by its first amended petition, alleged that defendants had purchased from the plaintiff certain goods, the same as specified in the verified account, by a contract in writing.
[6] Defendants’ attorneys announced to the trial court that they would make no appearance in said cause as to the amended pleading of plaintiff. Whereupon the court, having heard the evidence, rendered judgment for plaintiff. It does not appear that defendants asked for further time to secure evidence, or for any other purpose. The suit to recover upon an open account and the suit set out in the amended petition were in fact the same cause of action. “A cause of *1081action” is distinguishable from the “remedy,” which is simply the means by which the obligation or corresponding action is effectuated, and also from the “relief” sought. 1 Words and Phrases (Second Series) p. 603; Lemon v. Hubbard, 10 Cal. App. 471, 102 Pac. 554, 556. Mr. Pomeroy, in his work on Code Remedies (4th Ed.) §§ 347, 348, says:
“Every judicial action must therefore involve the following elements: A primary right possessed by the plaintiff, and a corresponding primary duty devolving upon the defendant;, a delict or wrong done by the defendant which consisted in a breach of such primary right and duty; a remedial right in favor of the plaintiff, and a remedial duty resting on the defendant springing from this delict; and finally the remedy or relief itself. Every action, however complicated or however simple, must contain these essential elements. Of these elements the primary right and duty and the delict or wrong combined constitute the ‘cause of action,’ in the legal sense of the term, and as it is used in the Codes of the several states. They are the legal cause or foundation whence the right of action springs; this right of action being identical with the ‘remedial right,’ as designated'in my analysis.”
See, also, Phœnix Lumber Co. v. Houston Waterworks, 94 Tex. 456, 61 S. W. 707; Johnson v. King, 64 Tex. 226; Phillio v. Blythe, 12 Tex. 124, 127.
The cause of action alleged in the original petition and that set up in the amended petition was the same. Only different proof by the plaintiff was required to establish the cause of action.
The motion is overruled.