Court Opinion

ID: 9831672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:16:39.849058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.868001
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Since announcement of our original opinion filed herein on June 15, 1939, whereby the judgment of the trial court was reversed and remanded, and while ap-pellees’ motions for rehearing are pending, the appellant, joined by appellee N. E. Williams, has presented to us a motion suggesting the disqualification of the trial judge by reason of having been of counsel and that the judgment from which this appeal is prosecuted is void by reason of constitutional provision reading as follows: Sec. 11, Art. 5, Vernon’s Ann.St.Const.: “No judge shall sit in any case wherein he may be interested, or where either of the parties may be connected with him, either by affinity or consanguinity, within such a degree as may be prescribed by law, or when he shall have been counsel in th'e case." (Italics ours).
Attached to such motion is the affidavit of Hon. C. E. McGaw, the district judge *219who entered the judgment in this case. The affidavit reads as follows:
“The State of Texas!
“County of Gregg J
“Before me, the undersigned authority, on this day personally appeared Judge C. E. McGaw, who being by me duly sworn ■on oath, states:
“That he is a lawyer admitted to the Bar of Texas, and is the identical C. E. McGaw who, as a member of the law firm of Stuart, Morgan, McGaw and Mitchell, signed as one of the attorneys of record for John R. Williams and Elizabeth Williams, and N. E. Williams, as next friend, the agreed judgment, made the 'basis of the suit and complaint by the Appellant in the above entitled cause, and set forth and contained in the transcript ■of the record on appeal, and on file in the above entitled and numbered cause in the Court of Civil Appeals of the Sixth Supreme Judicial District of Texas; that he was, in fact, an attorney in the case as set forth in the said case; that at the time ■of the trial of the above case now on appeal, he was the duly elected and qualified District Judge of the 124th Judicial District Court, and the judge who presided and determined and rendered the judgment in the above cause, from which this appeal, was taken, and which judgment appears, and is contained in the transcript of the record on appeal in the above entitled cause; that the C. E. McGaw who appeared as attorney of record in the said agreed judgment; and the Clarence E. Mc-Gaw, who presided as said judge in the trial of the said cause on appeal is one and the same identical person.
“C. E. McGaw
“Subscribed and sworn to before me by Judge C. E. McGaw on this September 22nd, 1939.
“Dozier Skipper, Jr.
“Clerk of District Court of Gregg
“(Seal) County, Texas.”
If the district judge was so disqualified, he then had no power to act in the case. It appears to be a well-settled rule that a judgment entered by a judge who is disqualified by the constitutional inhibition is void and of no effect.
We think the record amply reflects that the trial judge was disqualified to enter the judgment appealed from, and that the motion should be granted. Freeman on Judgments (5th Ed.) .Vol. 1, Sec. 328, 338; Lee v. British-American Mtg. Co., 51 Tex.Civ.App. 272, 115 S.W. 320; Gulf C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Looney, 42 Tex.Civ.App. 234, 95 S.W. 691; Seabrook v. First Nat’l Bank of Port Lavaca, Tex.Civ.App., 171 S.W. 247; Templeton v. Giddings, Tex.Sup., 12 S.W. 851; King v. Wise, Tex.Civ.App., 1 S.W.2d 732; Weil v. Lewis, Tex.Civ.App., 2 S.W.2d 566; Alsup v. Hawkeye Securities Co., Tex.Civ.App., 283 S.W. 618.
The granting of this motion does not change our judgment, but is another reason why the case must be remanded for a new trial.
All motions for rehearing have been duly considered and are respectfully overruled.