Court Opinion

ID: 9683644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:34:27.663895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:49.443292
License: Public Domain

MASSEY, Chief Justice
(concurring).
I was initially concerned with the question of whether the “partial summary judgment” provisions and its preliminary adjudication awarding plaintiff a decree of specific performance should be treated as a part of the final judgment from which the appeal was taken.
If so, the case as presented would be one wherein plaintiff had a judgment for both specific performance and for general damages because of the defendants’ breach of contract by failure to render such specific performance. Such a judgment would, of course, present a situation which would require that we reverse and remand.
However, by amended pleadings plaintiff went to trial on a case exclusively grounded in the defendants’ breach of contract, and for general (not specific) damages occasioned by the defendants’ breach of promise to pay the agreed purchase price. Wholly abandoned were plaintiff’s pre-existent pleadings and prayer for relief by way of imposing by judgment a duty upon the defendants to deliver the amount of the agreed purchase price. He had obtained this relief in the “partial summary judgment” and the court’s decree was never va*725cated or specifically stated as having been in any manner reformed. Though referred to by the final judgment it was not carried forward as any part of the relief decreed thereby.
Of course, the issues adjudicated by the “partial summary judgment” were unaltered, being the same whether appropriate relief be by damages or for specific performance. The findings adjudicated as part of the “partial summary judgment” were repeated and ratified in the body of the final judgment though the relief decreed therein was not made a part of the final judgment.
Already noticed is the fact that by his amended pleadings the plaintiff had abandoned any attempt to obtain specific performance by the defendants. Thus, had there been any award thereof in the final judgment there would have been no support by pleading.
Under the circumstances the situation would be analogous to one whereby the plaintiff had at a proper time made the requisite election between inconsistent remedies; were he elected to recover damages instead of obtaining the equitable order requiring defendants’ specific performance; and where there had been a preliminary trial of the issues of liability in establishing right to recover whatever plaintiff might elect to receive as relief.
My conclusion is fortified by the fact that the defendants never (prior to judgment) sought any estoppel as a part of any affirmative defense or tendered any specific performance up to that time.
Informative is the latter part of McDonald, Texas Civil Practice in Sec. 17.-26.1, “Summary Judgment, (New) — B. When Summary Judgment Proper”, Subdivision II, “On part of issues”, and the cases cited under citations numbered 32.5 and 33.