Court Opinion

ID: 9868918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 19:05:26.765198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:57.327983
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
As shown in our original opinion, appel-lees’ claim was presented to the adm.ius-tratrix, and was rejected by the administra-trix on February 19th. On March 23d the county court undertook to pass on the claim, and allowed it in part. On March 29th the administratrix perfected an appeal to the district court from the order of the county court. On May 22d appellees filed a pleading, styled as their original petition, in the cause thus appealed to the district court. This was more than ninety days after the date the administratrix rejected their claim. On May 28th appellees filed in the district court an original suit on their rejected claim. The two causes were consolidated by order of the district court. In the final judgment of the district court the order of the county court purporting to allow the claim in part was declared null and void, but a recovery was awarded ap-pellees on their original suit filed in the district court.
In their motion for rehearing in this court appellees urge among other things that the lodging of the appeal in the district court on March 29th vested the district court with jurisdiction of appellees’ claim, and had the effect of satisfying the requirement of Article 3522 that suit on the claim be filed in a court of proper jurisdiction within ninety days after the rejection of the claim by the administratrix.
The district court did not acquire jurisdiction of the claim by virtue of the appeal filed by the administratrix. It acquired jurisdiction of such claim only by the filing of the original suit by appellees in that court. The county court had no jurisdiction to pass on the rejected claim, and the district court acquired no jurisdiction to do so on the appeal. It had jurisdiction in the probate appeal only to declare null and void, as it did, the unauthorized order of the county court. The situation is analogous to that found in Huston v. Cole, 139 Tex. 150, 162 S.W.2d 404, 406, where it was said: “The probate court being without jurisdiction to pass on the question raised by Mrs. Garner, the district court had none on appeal, its jurisdiction being limited to such as the probate court could properly have exercised.”
After careful consideration, we are of the opinion that the motion for rehearing should be overruled, and it is so ordered.