Court Opinion

ID: 9755032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:21:42.630968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:01.516546
License: Public Domain

J. BONNER DORSEY, Justice (Assigned),
dissenting.
The Texas Supreme Court has written three times since 1986 on the propriety of Texas judges enjoining actions in courts in jurisdictions other than Texas1. In all of the cases, jurisdiction first attached in the Texas court and the same matters were the subject of litigation in both the Texas and foreign court. In each of the three eases, after considering the demand of comity, the supreme court has concluded that the trial judge abused his discretion and the injunction should not have issued. The rule that is synthesized from these cases is that only in extraordinary cases would an injunction be proper. Because I do not find that such special circumstances exist in the instant case, I believe the trial court abused its discretion and should not have issued the injunction. I would reverse.
The latest instruction from the supreme court is in Golden Rule Ins. Co. v. Harper, 925 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.1996) per curiam. In it Mr. Harper sued his medical insurance carrier, Golden Rule Insurance Co., in Harris County, Texas, for benefits it declined to pay for Mrs. Harper’s treatments. Golden Rule filed a declaratory judgment action in Illinois, where harper resides and the policy was issued to determine if the treatment Mrs. Harper sough was experimental, and thus excluded from coverage. Harper then sought and received a temporary injunction against Golden Rule from proceeding in the Illinois action. The court of appeals affirmed and found that the Illinois action only consisted of defensive issues and was the “mirror image” of the Texas suit. The court of appeals reasoned that the duplica*711tion of effort in the two courts would create havoc with resulting waste of judicial resources weighed heavily in favor of the anti-suit injunction.
The supreme court disagreed, and held that such reasoning is no supported by its decisions. It said, “In Gannon, we did not accept the argument that pursuing a declaratory judgment action in a Canadian court on issues that could have been brought as defenses in the first filed Texas proceeding was a waste of resources, let alone that such additional expense would justify an injunction against the Canadian proceedings. Gannon, 706 S.W.2d at 307-08. Nor did we agree that the risk of inconsistent judgments was a significant one, ...” Golden Rule, 925 S.W.2d at 651.
The court additionally refused to accept the distinction made by the court of appeals between a “mirror image” proceeding and an “ordinary single parallel” proceeding, where the court of appeals held that although an ordinary single parallel proceeding could not be enjoined a “mirror image” proceeding could be.
We reject the implicit distinction of the court below between single parallel proceeding and mirror image proceedings, and we disapprove the language of Admiral Ins. [Co. v. Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe Ry, 848 S.W.2d 251, 256 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1993, writ denied)], to the extent it offers such a rationale. This approach fails to give adequate weight to the principle of comity and threatens to allow the exception to swallow the rule. As we have said before, “if the principle of comity is to have any application, a single parallel proceeding ... cannot justify issuing an anti-suit injunction.” Gannon, 706 S.W.2d at 307. Such a suit must be allowed to proceed absent some other circumstances which render an injunction necessary to “prevent an irreparable miscarriage of justice.” Id. Merely because the suits present identical issues does not make their proceeding an “irreparable miscarriage of justice.”
Golden Rule, 925 S.W.2d at 651-52 (emphasis added).
Turning to the instant case, although there is some question whether the actions in Texas and New York are so similar that the foreign suit threatens the local court’s jurisdiction, I will assume it to be so. The Texas court acquired jurisdiction first and thus has dominant jurisdiction in the matter. The question then is what are the special circumstances that require injunction to avoid an irreparable miscarriage of justice. The trial judge so concluded so in his order, but we must examine the evidence and circumstances to determine if his decision was correct.
The majority finds special circumstances from a breach of a policy provision by London Market Insurers, by which they agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of any court of competent jurisdiction within the United States. By this agreement, London Market Insurers agreed to submit to a jurisdiction selected by appellees and to be bound by the judgment.2
However, I do not find that to be such a special circumstance so as to constitute an irreparable miscarriage of justice by the breach of the provision. I believe such a breach, if indeed it is, could be remedied by a later action for damages.
*712Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court and dissolve the injunction. Because the majority does not, I respectfully dissent.

. Gannon v. Payne, 706 S.W.2d 304 (Tex.1986) (J. Kilgarlin writing for a unanimous court); Christensen v. Integrity Ins. Co., 719 S.W.2d 161 (Tex.1986) (C.J. Hill writing for a unanimous court); and Golden Rule Ins. Co. v. Harper, 925 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.1996) (per curiam).

. Although the recent Dallas case of Amer. Int’l Specialty Lines Ins. Co. v. Triton Energy, Ltd., 52 S.W.3d 337 (Tex.App.—Dallas 2001, pet dism’d w.o.j.), mentioned the existence of such a “service of suit” provision as a partial justification for the anti suit injunction, I disagree with the conclusion. The case was not reviewed by the supreme court because it lacked jurisdiction.