Court Opinion

ID: 9766329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:41:50.622385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.526092
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DENTON, Chief Justice.
I respectfully dissent. In my opinion appellant’s plea of res judicata should be sustained. The essential facts of the two cases are identical. In both cases the City charges that by the filling of his property appellant is altering the natural flow of the waters. The judge of the 99th District Court made a final determination of this question when he denied the injunction in the previous case. The only new facts which have occurred since the final judgment of the prior case was the additional filling by appellant after the previous motion for injunction was denied and prior to the filing of the present suit. Appellant was then acting within his lawful rights as the City’s petition for injunctive relief had been denied. This action on the part of appellant did not alter the legal rights or relations of the litigants.
The fact the first suit did not specifically allege a violation of Article 7589a, V.A.C.S., is not material. That Act simply makes it unlawful to deviate the natural flow of surface waters. This in substance was the essence of the allegations of both suits, and the relief prayed for was the same. Even though it may be argued the issues in the two cases are not the same, the applicable rule was stated by the Supreme Court in Ogletree v. Crates, Tex., 363 S.W.2d 431:
“The rule of res judicata in Texas bars litigation of all issues connected with a cause of action or defense which, with the use of diligence, might have been tried in a former trial, as well as those which were actually tried.”
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and order the temporary injunction dissolved pending a trial upon the merits.