Court Opinion

ID: 9830423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:11:57.31964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:21.975324
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
It is earnestly insisted that we were in error in holding that the contract for .which appellants became sureties was void and not merely ultra vires, and many authorities are cited in support of this contention. But, while all of the cases on the subject may not seem to be harmonious, yet for the most part they are cases easily distinguishable from this. They present cases, either where the contract attacked has been fully executed, or where the party pleading the illegality thereof has been held to be estopped from pleading its vice. The case most strongly pressed upon us on the oral submission was that of Bond v. Terrell Mfg. Co., 82 Tex. 309, 18 S. W. 691. In that case it appears that the manufacturing company loaned to Bond certain moneys when not authorized to so do by the terms of its charter and when it was by implication forbidden to so do by a statute cited in the case. The court, however, did not hold the contract as such valid. It merely held, in effect, that because Bond had entered into and induced the making of the contract, and by virtue thereof had received moneys of the corporation and yet retained the same, he was, upon principles of equity, estopped from urging the contract’s illegality. But we will not undertake to reconcile conflicts, or to point out 'distinguishable features in the numerous decisions on the subject for much has been written. We deem it sufficient to say that in this case the contract between appellee and the Hydraulic Building Stone Company was never executed. It was wholly executory. Nor in this case is there an element of estoppel. Appellant paid nothing upon the contract, nor did the building company or appellants receive anything whatever by virtue thereof. No ground of recovery therefore in behalf of appellee existed. See, in addition to the cases cited by us originally, T. & P. Ry. Co. v. Lawson, 89 Tex. 394, 32 S. W. 871, 34 S. W. 919; Mitchell, Receiver of Commonwealth Bonding & Casualty Ins. Co., v. Porter (No. 8534) 194 S. W. 981, by this court, not yet officially reported. We therefore continue to think that the contract under consideration was wholly void as to all parties to it, and this was all that was intended by our expression on the subject in our original opinion.
The motion for rehearing will, accordingly, be overruled.