Court Opinion

ID: 9769494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:52:43.545261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:04.657197
License: Public Domain

DUNCAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the trial court’s dismissal of this suit for want of prosecution constituted an abuse of discretion. I would therefore reverse the- trial court’s judgment and remand this case for further proceedings.
Factual and PROCEDURAL Background2
This suit is one of thirty-seven lawsuits filed by Rampart in September 1994 against the limited partners of Perrin Oaks, Ltd. to collect on the promissory notes given by the limited partners to Perrin Oaks as their sole capital contributions. Although Rampart had acquired the notes by virtue of a series of transactions not relevant to the issue now before this court,-3 it was not a “holder” of the notes because they had not been properly indorsed by Perrin Oaks or its general partner. See Tex. Bus. & Com.Code Ann. § 3.203 (Vernon Supp.1998).
In March 1995, the Maguires filed their objections and answers to Rampart’s initial *199discovery requests. The Maguires’ discovery responses, as well as those of certain other limited partners, revealed they would dispute Rampart’s ownership of the notes. Rampart thus faced a choice — it could litigate its ownership of the relevant note in each of the lawsuits in which its ownership was disputed or it could file a single lawsuit to establish its status as the owner and holder of all of the notes. See id. § 3.203(b)-(c). For obvious efficiency reasons, Rampart chose the latter course and, in September 1995, filed an in-dorsement suit against the defunct limited partnership and its general partner — the only necessary parties. Although Rampart did not notify either the limited partners or the trial court that it had filed the indorsement suit, the Maguires and several of the other limited partners learned of the suit through other means and intervened.
The indorsement suit was, by its nature, a relatively simple proceeding. But its progress was delayed by Rampart’s “numerous failed efforts at serving [the general partner]”; the intervenors’ request for a sixty-day extension of time to respond to Rampart’s motion for summary judgment, which was filed March 12, 1996; the intervenors’ subsequent request for a continuance of the summary judgment hearing; and the interve-nors’ motion to abate the summary judgment hearing for two weeks.
During this period of delay, on May 5, 1996, the trial court clerk sent Rampart notice that this case and other of its limited partner suits would be dismissed for want of prosecution at a hearing scheduled for June 11. At the June 11 hearing, however, the trial court reset the dismissal hearing for October 8, 1996; accordingly, another dismissal notice for the reset hearing issued a couple of days later. Thereafter, in a letter dated August 22, Rampart requested that all twelve of the limited partner suits that remained pending be set for a jury trial on April 14,1997 at 8:30 a.m. In this suit against the Maguires, the trial court, on September 10, 1996 set the case for trial on June 16, 1997, at 8:30 a.m.
On September 19, the Maguires, with full knowledge of the indorsement suit and their part in the delay in its progress, and despite the fact that the dismissal hearing had been reset and this case had been set for trial, filed a motion to dismiss for want of prosecution. This motion was heard and denied on October 11 by the same judge who had earlier set the case for trial. Shortly thereafter, on October 15, 1996, Rampart’s motion for summary judgment in the indorsement suit was finally heard and granted. But then, on November 6, 1996, another judge dismissed the suit for want of prosecution.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a dismissal for want of prosecution under an abuse of discretion standard. E.g., MacGregor v. Rich, 941 S.W.2d 74, 75 (Tex.1997) (per curiam). “With respect to resolution of factual issues or matters committed to the trial court’s discretion,” an abuse of discretion is shown only when “the trial court could reasonably have reached only one decision,” and it failed to do so. Walker v. Packer, 827 S.W.2d 833, 839-40 (Tex.1992). But “[a] trial court has no ‘discretion’ in determining what the law is or applying the law to the facts.” Id. at 840. Whether a party has exercised due diligence in prosecuting its case is a question of fact. See MacGregor, 941 S.W.2d at 75-76.
Discussion
In my view, the record supports only one conclusion — Rampart diligently prosecuted this case against the Maguires by conducting discovery, initiating and prosecuting the in-dorsement suit to judgment, and obtaining a trial setting as soon as was reasonably practicable under the circumstances. The sixteen-month delay was caused, in large measure, by the Maguires’ actions in disputing Rampart’s ownership of the note and in intervening and then delaying a judgment in the indorsement suit — actions I believe have been shown by the trial court’s summary judgment to be objectively unreasonable. Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand this case for further proceedings. Because the majority fails to do so, I respectfully dissent.

. The material facts were set forth by Rampart’s attorney in its verified motion to reinstate and at the reinstatement hearing without objection or dispute by the Maguires. See Banda v. Garcia, 955 S.W.2d 270 (Tex.1997) (per curiam) (when attorney places opposing counsel and trial court on notice that its recitations of fact to the court are intended as evidence, and opposing counsel fails’ to object to trial court’s failure to administer oath to attorney, the trial court may consider an attorney’s unsworn testimony as evidence).

. Perrin Oaks, Ltd. conveyed one-third of each of the notes to each of the three general partners comprising the general partnership that was Per-rin Oak’s general partner. These men then gave the notes to Trinity National Bank as collateral for a loan to the general partnership. When Trinity National Bank later become insolvent, it transferred its collateral interest in the notes to its receiver, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which ultimately sold the collateral interest to Rampart. Rampart subsequently foreclosed on its collateral interests and became the owner of the notes.