Court Opinion

ID: 9943963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 15:34:51.20706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:54:18.819645
License: Public Domain

I respectfully dissent. The majority says that if you do not file your first petition with properly joined parties whose claims aggregate the minimum jurisdictional amount, the trial court can do nothing but dismiss the lawsuit. I disagree.
The factual background of the case has been properly set out in the majority's opinion. The sole question is legislative construction of a statute whose express purpose was to give a method of computing the amount in controversy for jurisdictional purposes, where two or more parties are properly joined in one suit.
Title 40 of our statutes concerns our District Courts. Chapter three addresses the Powers of the District Judge and the Jurisdiction of the District Court. The first article under Chapter 3 is Art. 1906 which speaks of "original jurisdiction". It starts off by saying, "The district court shall have original jurisdiction in civil cases of:". It then enumerates the specific different types of civil cases of which the District *Page 934 
Court has original jurisdiction. Article 1906 was amended in 1945 by Art. 1906a which permitted two or more persons to add their claims together so as to reach the jurisdictional amount required for a district court.
The majority takes the literal meaning of the word "originally" (in the amended article) and construes it strictly so that if two or more persons do not join together in the very first instant their claims totaling an aggregate amount that would give the District Court (at the outset), their suit must be dismissed and cannot ever be amended.
If the term "originally" is ambiguous and the meaning of the lawmakers is uncertain, it should be construed liberally in such a way that the public's interest can better be served. However, I believe that term "originally" as here used applies directly to the District Court that has original jurisdiction as opposed to appellate jurisdiction. The word "originally" in 1906a refers to the word "original" in 1906. When you continue reading the statute with the other articles in Chapter three about jurisdiction, the very next article refers to appellate jurisdiction instead of original jurisdiction. The Legislature was referring to the joinder of parties for jurisdictional purposes in district court suits under Art. 1906. It was talking about "original jurisdiction" and not about the first original petition of the parties as the majority would have us believe. Black's Law Dictionary says this about original jurisdiction: "Jurisdiction in the first instance; jurisdiction to take cognizance of a cause at its inception, try it, and pass judgment upon the law and facts. This is distinguished from Appellate jurisdiction." (See Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, p. 1251).
The Legislature, when it was referring to the joinder of parties in District Court suits, required such joinder to be done in the District Court of original jurisdiction. If the parties were properly joined (under Rule 40, T.R.C.P.) and if the aggregate amount of all of their claims when added together (exclusive of interest and costs) gave the District Court jurisdiction, it could proceed to trial and judgment. Article 1906 and the amendment by Art. 1906a when read together would read: Where two or more persons who file one of the seven types of enumerated civil cases in the district court which has original jurisdiction and such persons are properly joined in one suit, the suit for jurisdictional purposes shall be treated as if one party were suing for the aggregate amount of all of the claims added together, exclusive of interest and cost.
It is not necessary for this Court to construe this article. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion has already construed it. It said, "Article 1906a was enacted for the express purpose of curing what the Legislature described as a `jurisdictional defect' in Long v. City of Wichita Falls, 142 Tex. 202,176 S.W.2d 936; the `defect' (the Supreme Court goes on to say) was the holding in Long that the claims of several plaintiffs cannot be added together to achieve a jurisdictional amount." Texas Emp. Com'n v. International U. of E., R. M. Wkrs., 352 S.W.2d 252 (Tex.Sup. 1961). The Supreme Court did not say that if this adding together was not done in the first original petition, the case had to be dismissed.
After the Supreme Court's holding in Long in 1944, the Legislature in 1945 amended Article 1906 to cure this jurisdictional defect by stating in its preamble that this act gives a method for computing the amount of controversy for jurisdictional purposes where parties were Properly joined in one suit. It says nothing about originally in the first petition.
The majority says, in effect, that the question to be resolved is not one of proper joinder of claims in a court that has original jurisdiction, but whether the plaintiffs can join for jurisdictional purposes other parties by an Amended petition to give the trial court the required amount for jurisdictional purposes. They answer this question by saying it can't be done because the first original petition lacked the required dollar amount. An original petition may be amended many times (see Rule 63), and may now be amended without leave of the *Page 935 
court as a matter of right when filed seven days or more before trial. It is the last amended and/or supplemental petition on which the parties go to trial. It does not make sense that the Legislature was going into the rule-making process by prohibiting a party from amending his original petition so as to join other claims and other parties in order that the aggregate amount would give the trial court jurisdiction.
It does not seem sensible to require a District trial court to dismiss a lawsuit and require the parties to refile a new suit instead of amending their petition, even if in the first instance the pleader made a typographical mistake and failed to plead the jurisdictional amount. There is no other situation in the law of this State or any other state that I could find that prohibits a party from amending his petition. The majority cites no authority for its statement that you can amend your petition only if you alleged proper jurisdiction in your very first petition. The many unsupported statements in the majority's opinion lead to many absurdities in the law.
If what the majority now says is true, why didn't they enter the judgment that the trial court should have entered the first time the case came up here on appeal. (Byke v. City of Corpus Christi, 541 S.W.2d 661 (Tex.Civ.App. Corpus Christi 1976, no writ)). Finding as we did that the judgment had to be reversed, the majority should have dismissed the case under authority and in obedience with Rule 434, T.R.C.P.
 "When the judgment or decree of the court below shall be reversed, the court shall proceed to render such judgment or decree as the court below should have rendered, except when it is necessary that some matter of fact be ascertained or the damage to be assessed or the matter to be decreed is uncertain, in either of which cases the cause shall be remanded for a new trial."
It would have saved the parties a lot of time, trouble and expense. Instead this court ruled that: "The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court for further proceedings." That indicated to me, and it still does, that the plaintiff was free to amend, a choice the trial court should have given the plaintiff in this second trial. Instead, the majority would have us affirm that portion of the trial court's second judgment which states:
 "that the named Plaintiffs Could not in good faith, and did not, allege an amount in controversy within the jurisdictional requirements of this Court". (emphasis supplied.)
This is not true. The plaintiffs did, in fact, amend in good faith. They did allege an amount within the jurisdictional requirements of the District trial court. However, the trial court dismissed their suit.
I believe it is also error to affirm that part of the trial court's judgment that dismissed the case (without prejudice), but backdating its dismissal judgment with a judgment nunc pro tunc to December 29, 1976.