Court Opinion

ID: 9831455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:07:16.106992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:34.910521
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants occupied the position of plaintiffs in their cross-action, just as they would have occupied that position in a separate suit instituted by tl^em. The law provides the method for the dismissal of a suit in vacation. The motion to dismiss the cross-action was filed in vacation, it was not entered on the docket, and there was no payment of the costs. This would be the rule if there had been no answer to the cross-action. The cross-action had been answered by the appellee, and it could not be dismissed in vacation, even by entry on the docket and paying the costs. Article 1898, Rev. Stats.; Williams v. Williams (Tex. Civ. App.) 38 S. W. 261; Hill v. Patterson (Tex. Civ. App.) 191 S. W. 621. The cross-action was not dismissed.
It seems to be the position of appellants that this court has attempted to override all the decisions on the subject heretofore rendered by the courts of Texas, among the number being: Payne v. Benham, 16 Tex. 364; Railway v. Dowe, 70 Tex. 1, 6 S. W. 790; Simmang v. Braunagel (Tex. Civ. App.) 27 S. W. 1032; Seeligson v. Gifford, 46 Tex. Civ. App. 566, 103 S. W. 416; Harrison v. Littlefield, 57 Tex. Civ. App. 617, 124 S. W. 212; Pullman v. Hoyle, 52 Tex. Civ. App. 534, 115 S. W. 315; Cole v. State (Tex. Civ. App.) 163 S. W. 353; Twin City Co. v. Birchfield (Tex. Civ. App.) 228 S. W. 616; Sparks v. Lasater (Tex. Civ. App.) 232 S. W. 346; Priddy v. Business Men’s Oil Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 241 S. W. 770, and (Tex. Com. App.) 250 S. W. 156; Smith v. Patton (Tex. Com. App.) 241 S. W. 109. If it be true that the opinion of this court has ignored and placed itself in conflict with this long list of decisions, both its own, those of other Courts of Civil Appeals, Commission of Appeals, and Supreme Court, “it were a grievous fault,” and the existence of such conflict will provide a safe means for entering the Supreme Court, without fear of having “dismissed for want of jurisdiction” inscribed on the application for writ of error. It is regrettable that the points of conflict have not been indicated to this court, so that our opinion might have been made to conform to these various ‘decisions. However, a consideration of the cases convinces this court that there is no conflict either real or apparent. A review of the cases by this court need not be written into this opinion, because it would be of no practical value.
It has been suggested that the writ of injunction should not have been issued, because the matter should have been reached by a plea in abatement. However, that plea would not have been efficacious in this suit for the reason that the parties were not the same nor the cause of action the same. The plaintiff in the one suit was the defendant in the other. “In such ease the general rule is to the effect that the plea of a prior action pending applies only where plaintiff in both suits is the same person, and both are commenced by himself, and not to * * * *269cross-suits by a plaintiff in one suit who is defendant in the other; in other words, that where the party defendant in the prior suit is plaintiff in the subsequent suit, the first suit cannot be pleaded in abatement of the second.” McCoy v. Bankers’ Trust Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 200 S. W. 1138; Priddy v. Oil Co. (Tex. Civ. App,) 241 S. W. 770, affirmed in (Tex. Com. App.) 250 S. W. 156. There was but one remedy for appellee, and that the equitable one of injunction.
In addition to the reasons given for sustaining the judgment granting the injunction, we are of the opinion that the district court created by the act of the Hirst Called Session of the 37th Legislature, General Laws, p. 12 et seq. (Vernon’s Ann. Code Cr. Proc. Supp. 1922, art. 97% et seq.), was and is a duly constituted court- with the powers given it, and no others, under that act. That act provides for a criminal district court for the counties of Nueces, Kleberg, Kenedy, Willacy, and Cameron, and clothes it with exclusive jurisdiction over criminal eases to “try and determine all causes for divorce between husband and wife and adjudicate property rights in connection therewith in said counties, and try and determine all causes for the collection of delinquent taxes and the enforcement of liens for the collection of the same.” The other district court, in the Twenty-Eighth district, was, by the act, deprived of all jurisdiction over the cases over which 'the criminal district court was given jurisdiction.
Article 5, § Í, of the state Constitution, provides that the judicial power of the state shall be vested in one Supreme Court, Courts of .Civil Appeals, in a Court of Criminal Appeals, in district courts, in county courts, in commissioners’ courts, in courts of justices of the peace, and in such other courts as may be provided by law. It is further provided:
“The Legislature may establish such other courts as it may deem necessary, and prescribe the jurisdiction and organization thereof, and may conform the jurisdiction of the district and other inferior courts thereto.”
We are of opinion that under that authority the Legislature was authorized to create the criminal district court of the Twenty-Eighth district and confer on it criminal jurisdiction and the limited jurisdiction conferred upon it in civil matters. The Legislature has defined the jurisdiction and prescribed the duties of the criminal district court, and it has no power outside of or beyond those conferred by the statute of its creation. It follows that the writ of mandamus issued by the judge of the criminal district court was null and void. We need not enter into a discussion of this question. The language of the Gonstitution is plain and explicit and cannot be strengthened by argument.
This court is informed in one clause of the motion for rehearing that “the appropriate remedy was by plea in abatement, so that the litigant could then determine when to dismiss his cross-action and prosecute his independent suit or dismiss the independent suit, and prosecute the cross-action, and Judge Hopkins erred in attempting to make the election for the litigant by way of injunction.” In the next succeeding paragraph of the motion this court is informed that the causes of action, and the parties to the litigation were not identical. If the last proposition be true, it is difficult to understand how a plea in abatement would reach the matter and provide a remedy. The law requires the causes of action and parties to be identical before a plea'in abatement would be efficacious,
• While the causes of action in the two courts were not identical, so as to permit the plea in abatement to prevail had it been invoked, the gist of the two actions was the same, and the act of the criminal court was an invasion of the jurisdiction of the district court before which it was pending. In addition, the attempted invásion of the jurisdiction of that court was clearly beyond the powers and authority of the criminal district court and could be restrained by the court holding jurisdiction. •
The motion for rehearing is without merit, and is overruled.