Court Opinion

ID: 9764644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:34:24.065703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:59.429328
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Garwood
dissenting.
As it lies in my mind, the question presented is one of procedure. The petition alleged that the negligent breaks in the respective salt water lines of the two defendants each occurred on or about April 1, 1949, and polluted the one lake in question and “killed, or contributed to the killing, of all the fish in plaintiff’s lake, to plaintiff’s damage by the killing of said fish in the sum of at least $126.15, and further damages for the loss of the use of said lake as will be hereinafter more specifically pled.” About the only material differences in the respective allegations concerning each break are that in one instance the amount of salt water which escaped and entered the lake was “approximately 12,000 to 15,000 barrels” and in the other “large quantities,” while the former did special items of damage by running over plaintiff's land before it reached the lake. The prayer for *259damages sought a joint and several judgment against both defendants for all losses suffered. A plea in abatement of each defendant based on misjoinder of parties and causes of action was sustained, and the suit, as to damages, was dismissed on the refusal of the plaintiff to replead by separate suits for damages against each defendant. The correctness of that action of the trial court, affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, is all that is before us.
Rule 40, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, contains this clear provision:
“* * * All persons may be joined in one action as defendants if there is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences and if any question of law or fact common to all of them will arise in the action. A plaintiff or defendant need not be interested in obtaining or defending against all the relief demanded.”
This seems quite broad enough to entitle the plaintiff to bring both defendants into the one suit, and such is apparently the view of Mr. McDonald in his recent exhaustive “Texas Civil Practice.” (See Yol. 1, p. 226, § 3.19). It would follow that the trial court erred in sustaining the pleas in abatement.
This approach seems preferable to treating the case in substance as if the trial court had, so to speak, sustained a general demurrer and dismissed on the plaintiff’s refusal to replead. It does sometimes happen that so-called dilatory pleas go to the merits, but here I doubt if we should simply presume that the court decided the matter — and thus the whole case — as one of substantive law. The petition may properly be taken as alleging that the conduct of each defendant, separately considered, was sufficient to cause all of the loss suffered. I do not construe the Robicheaux case or any other Texas decision to deny the plaintiff under such circumstances a full recovery against both defendants jointly and severally, and' consequently am reluctant to assume that the trial court acted on a contrary theory.
Mr. McDonald does appear also to sanction the view that much latitude is lodged in the trial court in applying — rightly or wrongly — the procedural rule in question and for that reason, as well as what is said in the majority opinion, the conclusion of the latter on the point has much to support it. However, in *260a case like the present, in which the situation is relatively simple, with everything that was known to the trial court being equally well known to us, and in which our revision of the trial court’s action involves no very expensive consequence, I should not hesitate to act on my difference of opinion with the trial judge, even though I do hesitate to employ that somewhat vague and condemnatory phrase, “abuse of discretion.”
My own preference, therefore, is to reverse with instructions to reinstate the suit as if the pleas in abatement had not been sustained, but without thereby making any ruling on the substantive law of the case.
Opinion delivered April 2, 1952.
Rehearing overruled May 28, 1952.