Court Opinion

ID: 9659740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:53:56.311935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:11.247847
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Because I believe the majority errs in holding that the language “et al” and “and other plaintiffs” was sufficient to maintain the cause of action as to all individual plaintiffs, I respectfully dissent.
The law in Texas is clear that “[p]arties to a suit are just as effectively dismissed from a suit by omitting their names from an amended pleading as where a formal order of dismissal is entered.” Mercure Co., N.V. v. Rowland, 715 S.W.2d 677, 679 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1986, no writ). The majority acknowledges the line of cases so holding, but attempts to distinguish them by stating that each of those cases involves the omission of a defendant’s name from the pleading. The majority goes on to hold “the ‘omission’ rule inapplicable to plaintiffs who have been individually named in prior pleadings and have been generically referred to in a subsequent pleading.” I disagree.
Our rules of civil procedure require that a plaintiff’s petition “shall state the names of the parties and their residences, if known....” Tex.R.Civ.P. 79 (emphasis added). The purpose of this rule is to allow the defendant to identify a particular plaintiff with a particular law suit. Presley v. Wilson, 125 S.W.2d 654, 656 (Tex.Civ.App. —Dallas 1939, writ dism’d judgmt cor.). Given this mandate, I believe the omission of a plaintiff’s name from a pleading serves as a dismissal of that party to the lawsuit the same as if the omitted party was a defendant.
In declining to apply the “omission” rule to omitted plaintiffs, the majority relies on the fact that during the time the “et al” pleading was the live pleading, appellee noticed the depositions of several plaintiffs not individually named in the pleading. The record shows, however, that throughout the life of this lawsuit, plaintiffs were consistently being added or removed from the suit. Given this fact, I fail to see how *825appellee could have ascertained the names of the plaintiffs remaining in the suit unless those plaintiffs were individually named in the petition. The majority places the burden of determining the plaintiffs’ names on the defendant while the rules of civil procedure place that onus on the plaintiffs.
The majority also finds that appellee’s “Motion to Close File” was actually a special exception which allowed appellants the opportunity to amend their pleading. Again, I disagree. Because I believe the individual plaintiffs were dismissed from the suit when their names were omitted from the petition, there was no ambiguity which could have been resolved by a special exception. Appellee’s motion was nothing more than an attempt to bring to the court’s attention the fact that all plaintiffs had been dismissed from the suit.
Because the omission of the individual plaintiffs’ names from the sixth amended original petition effectively dismissed those plaintiffs from the suit, and because appel-lees were not entitled to the benefit of a special exception, I believe the trial court acted properly in granting appellee’s motion to strike the seventh amended original petition as well as its motion for summary judgment. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.
MURPHY, J., joins in this dissent.