Court Opinion

ID: 9680063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:18:27.702144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:25.159015
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
STEPHEN F. PRESLAR, Chief Justice.
By its motion for rehearing, Plaintiff/Ap-pellee continues to urge that the Defendant has not laid the proper foundation to complain of abuse of discretion in the allowance of the trial amendment. It begins its argument by saying: “No objections to the allowance of the Trial Amendment are in the record.” The transcript and Appellee’s own pleadings and the Court’s findings are to the contrary. In the very trial amendment here complained of, Plaintiff/Appellee pled: “ * * with leave of Court first had and obtained, and after the Court’s having heard the objections of defense counsel, which are of record manifest, prior to the Court’s granting leave to file, files this the Plaintiff’s First Trial Amendment * In its fiat allowing such amendment, the Court says: “The foregoing Trial Amendment having been duly presented and argued to the Court Wednesday, December 11, 1974, and the Court having heard the arguments of the attorneys for both parties, and it is the ORDER, JUDGMENT and DECREE of this Court that leave be and the same is hereby in all things granted to the Plaintiff to file the foregoing Trial Amendment in this cause.”
Thus, Defendant met its burden of objecting to the amendment, which was, under Rule 66, Tex.R.Civ.P., to “* * * satisfy the court that the allowance of such amendment would prejudice him in maintaining his * * * defense upon the merits.” Appellee urges that we must presume the trial Court was correct in the absence of some reasons given by Appellant in opposition to the amendment. We do not so read Rule 66 as requiring some specific words to be used or the pleading of some required formal reasons. Rather, the burden there, as stated, is to satisfy the Court. It is the record in this case that should have satisfied the Court, and not any special words or reasons given.
It was not what Appellant said in objecting to the amendment, but what the record shows that presents the error. That record is, speaking of the parties as they appeared in the trial Court, that the Plaintiff alleged and tried to completion a case for rescission of a contract on the basis that there was fraud in the inducement of entering into the contract. At the completion of the case, it was met with a motion for a directed verdict, which was good. There was no pleading or evidence of an offer to return the merchandise; there was no pleading or evidence of an offer to pay for the value of any benefits from its possession. This was fatal to the case for rescission. In fact, the proof was that the suit was filed in September of 1972, and the equipment obtained under the contract was used until April of 1973 by the Plaintiff; the equipment was used for over five years. In an exchange *813between counsel and the Court out of the presence of the jury, it was established that sometime in May of 1973, after the equipment had been replaced by IBM equipment and long after the suit was filed, counsel for Plaintiff told counsel for Defendant in a telephone conversation that they could come and get it. But there are no pleadings or evidence as to that belated offer. Thus, the record is that the Plaintiff went to Court and tried its case, which had been on file for three years with known fatal flaws in its pleadings, and when met with a directed verdict pointing out those flaws, it sought the amendment in question asking that a different cause of action be submitted to the jury. In deciding whether to permit the amendment or not, the equities clearly appear to lie with the Defendant.
The Defendant did nothing to bring about this situation. It did nothing but defend against the case pled against it— and successfully. Before the jury, it opposed a contention that the contract should be rescinded. It would be prejudicial to then have to assume a contrary position before the same jury, and that without prior notice. Notice is fundamental to justice, and our rules and laws make every provision for it. Prior to having to defend against this new lawsuit, there should have been notice in ample time to make preparation for it. Otherwise, the rights of the Defendant have been prejudiced. On the other hand, the Plaintiff is responsible for the state of its pleadings. It shows no diligence or excuse for its failure to have its pleadings in order. Plaintiff sought to rescind on the basis of fraud in the inducement of a contract entered into in 1968; it delayed until after trial in 1975 to present the amendment causing this controversy.
This was not a trial amendment to meet an objection that evidence, or special issues in the charge, are not supported by the pleadings. But even if it were, the amendment should not have been allowed. The factors which affect the exercise of the judge’s discretion on such matters are discussed in McDonald, Texas Civil Practice, Vol. 2, Sec. 807, page 330, wherein the au-
thor quotes from Lightner v. McCord, 151 S.W.2d 362 (Tex.Civ.App.—Amarillo 1941):
“ ‘In the matter of allowing amendments pending the trial in order to meet the proof, the trial judge should allow the amendment if it appears that the new matter contained in it was not known to the party seeking to file the same or, by the exercise of reasonable diligence, he could not have ascertained the same when his former pleadings were filed, and that it does not involve new issues or inject into the case new matters which would interfere with the orderly progress of the court’s docket or work injustice upon other parties. However, . . . when it appears that the new matter was known to the party seeking to file the amendment, or to his counsel, or, by exercising reasonable diligence, it could have been known . at such time as would have enabled them to include it in his former pleadings, or if it injects new matter . . . the request should be denied.’ ”
Additional authority for that statement is Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Dillingham, 262 S.W.2d 748 (Tex.Civ.App.—Fort Worth 1953, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Moore v. Dallas Post Card Co., 215 S.W.2d 398 (Tex.Civ.App. —Dallas 1948, writ ref’d n. r. e.), and James A. Dick Co. v. Yanez, 55 S.W.2d 600 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1932, writ ref’d).
We can understand the reluctance of the trial Court not to continue, but to try this case to completion, which has been on its docket for three years. But, we remain convinced that the trial judge abused his discretion in allowing the amendment. The motion for rehearing is overruled.
WARD, J., dissents.