Court Opinion

ID: 9679598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:58:15.012602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:57.813636
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Justice
(dissenting).
“Color me amazed." *
On July 15, 1976, in Nobility Homes of Texas, Inc. v. Shivers, 539 S.W.2d 190, the majority of this court attempted to change the well-settled law in this state requiring privity of contract when there is no injury to person or property. Today, the majority adheres to its erroneous declaration of the law in Shivers, and I remain firmly convinced that, for the reasons set out in the dissent in Shivers, the pronouncement is wrong.
However, if the majority insists on being wrong, they should at least strive to be wrong with consistency, and avoid being wrong in a different way and for different reasons each day. Until I reached the last paragraph of the opinion, it appeared that the majority was going to arrive at the correct result, a reversal and a rendition of the judgment. Indeed, the portion of the opinion relating to the Commercial Code is a correct exposition of the law. Yet, inexplicably, plaintiffs are to be given another bite at the apple when they have conclusively established — upon the trial the record of which we now review — that they may not prevail upon another trial.
Admittedly, plaintiffs have driven the vehicle more than fourteen thousand miles; they have made one or more trips to Louisiana, Colorado, and California — and those places are far distant from Harris County, Texas — during the two years they have exercised dominion and control over the vehicle. And, they still have the vehicle in their possession5A They may not, therefore, under our record, recover on another trial. See Bowen v. Young, 507 S.W.2d 600, 602—605, 67 A.L.R.3d 354, 357-360 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1974, no writ), cited, but not followed, by the majority. See also the cases cited in Bowen and in the annotation following Bowen, 67 A.L.R.3d 363, et seq.
What is even more inexplicable is the fact that the new trial ordered is said to be “[i]n the interest of justice.” This sympathetic relief is ordered for litigants who failed to file a brief or appear in this Court upon submission of the cause. Ordinarily, such litigants are not afforded such solicitous treatment. See and compare Crawford v. Modos, 465 S.W.2d 220, 222-223 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1971, writ dism’d).
Ostensibly, this extraordinary relief is granted because of an alleged “uncertainty as to the rules of law” applicable to the case. I submit that this is an excuse without any foundation. There was no uncertainty in the law before the majority wandered astray in Shivers, supra. See, e. g., the list of cases cited by Judge Steger in Cloer v. General Motors Corporation, 395 F.Supp. 1070, 1071-1072 (E.D.Tex.1975), and those cited in Bowen v. Young, supra.
While I join in a reversal of the judgment of the trial court, I dissent from a remand of the cause for a new trial.

An expression sometimes used by Presiding Judge Onion. See, e. g., Aldrighetti v. State, 507 S.W.2d 770, 775 (Tex.Crim.App.1974); Taylor v. State, 508 S.W.2d 393, 397 (Tex.Crim.App.1974).