Court Opinion

ID: 9760720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:10:18.836808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:16.363935
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

BARAJAS, Chief Justice.
In a motion for rehearing, Appellee claims that at the time of trial she was entitled to rely on the viability of a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress as recognized by the Texas Supreme Court in St. Elizabeth Hosp. v. Garrard, 730 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.1987). Because the Texas Supreme Court overruled Garrard in Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 595 (Tex.1993), which issued several months after trial in the instant case, Appellee maintains that she is entitled to a *535new trial to pursue other legal theories that may support recovery.
We have broad discretion to remand for a new trial in the interest of justice where it appears that a party may have proceeded under the wrong legal theory. Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d at 608. Remand is particularly appropriate where the losing party may have presented his case in reliance on controlling precedent that was subsequently overruled. Id.; Wackenhut Corp. v. Perez, 865 S.W.2d 85, 86 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1993, writ denied). Further, we may limit the issues that may be raised on remand. Wackenhut Corp. v. Perez, 865 S.W.2d 86, 87 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1998, writ denied).
We recognize that Appellee may have relied at trial on a subsequently overruled legal theory. The appropriate time to seek relief on this ground, however, was on original submission in this Court, not on rehearing. We note that the Boyles decision was issued on May 3, 1993. Appellant filed its brief with this Court on September 9, 1993, arguing that Boyles barred Appellee’s recovery absent some independently cognizable legal duty. Appellee’s brief was filed on October 19,1993. Although she cited Boyles in her brief, her interpretation of the case largely coincided with Appellant’s, and she argued only that Boyles presents no bar to her claim because landlord-tenant law provides the requisite independent legal duty. The instant case was ultimately set for oral argument on October 17, 1994, more than a year after Boyles, yet, it is at rehearing that Appellant, for the first time, advances a request for a new trial based on her inability to anticipate the post-trial ramifications of Boyles. Rehearing is not an opportunity to test alternative arguments after finding other arguments unsuccessful. Having been given ample opportunity, Appellee should have assigned the argument she now presses as a cross-point of error on original submission and expressly prayed for a new trial based on the unforeseen consequences of Boyles v. Kerr. Her failure to do so leaves us disinclined to effectively allow her a second opportunity to bring her complaint. Our decision should not, however, be interpreted as a bar to a new trial in a case where the proper alternative relief and the supporting argument therefor were timely presented. We overrule Appellee’s motion for rehearing.
On rehearing, the parties for the first time emphasize the temporal relationship between Appellee’s lease and the preexisting lien on her home that was held by Appellant. We think it prudent to make clear that our opinion neither results exclusively from nor purports to alter the general rule that foreclosure destroys all interests junior to the mortgage being foreclosed.1 See Med Center Bank v. Fleetwood, 854 S.W.2d 278, 284 (Tex.App.—Austin 1993, writ denied) (finding that foreclosure sale purchaser becomes new landlord if lease was executed before the deed of trust pursuant to which the property is foreclosed upon) (citing United Gen. Ins. Agency v. American Nat’l Ins. Co., 740 S.W.2d 885, 886 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1987, no writ)). While Appellee’s lease was junior to Appellant’s lien on her home and was therefore terminated by foreclosure, the analytical crux of our opinion concerns the extent to which the parties by their post foreclosure conduct entered into a new relationship. Thus, the general rule of temporal priority does not dispose of Appellee’s claims, although it supports the general rule we announced in our opinion and abbreviates the method by which we arrived at it.

. Neither does our opinion purport to address the status of a foreclosure sale purchaser relative to a lessee whose lease is senior to the foreclosed upon mortgage, which purchaser the general rule instructs takes subject to the pre-existing lease.