Court Opinion

ID: 9830381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:09:43.204184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:20.659703
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
[5] In an exhaustive argument on the motion for rehearing, counsel for appellant call attention to the distinction made by the courts between suits at law and suits in equity regarding the effect of the dissolution of a corporation during the pendency of a suit. In Life Association v. Goode, 71 Tex. 90, 8 S. W. 639, the court said:
“That upon the dissolution of the corporation the action abated there can be no question. Bank v. Colby, 21 Wall. 614; Mumma v. Potomac Co., 8 Peters, 281; Morawetz on Corporations, 1031.
“At law an action abated by the death of a sole defendant ceases for all purposes, is entirely dead, and cannot be revived. * * * The rule in the courts of equity is thus stated: ‘An abatement, in the sense of the common law, is an entire overthrow or destruction of the suit, so that it is quashed or ended. But, in the sense of a court of equity, an abatement signifies only a present suspension of all proceedings in the suit, for the want of proper parties capable of proceeding therein. At common law a suit, when abated, .s absolutely dead. But, in equity, a suit when abated, is (if such an expression be allowable) merely in a 'state of suspended animation, and it may be revived.’ ”
Under the rule announced above, the trial court could not, in this ease, have rendered any .judgment against the defunct corporation. The suit was at that time in a state of “suspended animation,” because of the death of the defendant and the absence of any legal entity against which any judgment could be entered. Upon the dissolution of the life insurance company, the appellant might have secured the appointment 6f a receiver, or might have made the managing officers parties to this proceeding, and then proceeded to a judgment foreclosing its lien upon the property involved
The language of the last paragraph of the original opinion may be misleading. To make the meaning clearer it is proper to say that the language of the statute quoted in that paragraph refers to pending suits where the dissolution of the corporation took place after the statute took effect.
The motion for a rehearing is overruled.