Court Opinion

ID: 9638400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:43:02.129969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:06.272505
License: Public Domain

GUITTARD, Chief Justice.
The question on this appeal is whether a statutory change in the rate of interest on judgments applies to a judgment recovered before the effective date of the change so as to make the judgment bear interest at the new rate from the date of the change. We hold that the judgment continues to bear interest at the old rate.
When the present judgment was signed on April 28,1975, the statute governing the interest rate on judgments was Texas Laws 1967, chapter 274, section 2, at 610, which provided: “All judgments of the courts of this State shall bear interest at the rate of six percent per annum from and after the date of the judgment . . . ” This statute was amended by the legislature in 1975 by substituting “nine” for “six.” The amendment by its terms became effective September 1, 1975. Tex. Laws 1975, ch. 288, § 1, at 730.1
After an unsuccessful appeal from the judgment by defendant, Sammons Enterprises, Inc., plaintiffs Darrell F. Manley and Conway Phillips obtained from the district clerk a writ of execution for the amount of the judgment “with interest thereon at the rate of 6 percent per annum from April 28, 1975, to September 1, 1975, and thereafter at 9% per annum until paid in full.” Sam-mons Enterprises then sought in the trial court a temporary injunction restraining Manley and Phillips and the sheriff of Dallas County from levying this writ or any writ providing for interest for any period in excess of six percent per annum. After a hearing, the trial court denied injunctive relief, and Sammons Enterprises perfected this interlocutory appeal, which was heard upon the complete record and with full briefs on both sides only seven days after the trial court’s order denying the temporary injunction. Before the appeal was perfected, we issued our own temporary injunction to preserve the status quo pending decision of this appeal.
Appellant contends that the statutory change in the rate of interest does not apply to judgments recovered before its effective date, citing Missouri P. Ry. v. Patton, 35 S.W. 477 (Tex. Civ. App. 1896, writ ref’d). Patton is exactly on the point, except that it concerned the 1892 amendment to the same statute, which reduced the rate rather than increasing it. After the plaintiff had obtained satisfaction of the principal amount of the judgment with interest at the higher rate until the effective date of the rate change and thereafter at the new lower rate, he moved for execution for the balance, and the trial court granted judgment for the difference, which the defendant appealed. This judgment was affirmed by the court of civil appeals on the ground that the rate of interest was fixed by the original judgment. The court wrote:
The rights and liabilities of the parties were then fixed by that judgment under the law as then existing, and when the judgment was so rendered it became a certain and fixed demand, that would not fluctuate in keeping with changes that might thereafter be made in the law that related to claims of that class, unless it clearly appeared that such laws were intended to have such retroactive effect. When demands are finally merged into judgments, subsequent changes by law of the rates of interest will not affect such judgments, unless the statutes so declare.
Id. 35 S.W. at 478.
This reasoning would have been equally applicable if the rate had been increased rather than reduced. The policy of the *207state was declared to be that the rate of interest after judgment, like other matters involved in the suit, should be finally settled by the judgment and should not be subject to change with subsequent changes in the law.
Although at the time Patton was decided “Refusal” of a writ of error did not necessarily indicate approval of the opinion by the supreme court, only one point was raised by the appeal, and, consequently, we may presume that the supreme court approved the judgment for interest at the old rate and thus, on whatever rationale, construed the statute as the court of civil appeals construed it. Conley v. Abrams, 7 S.W.2d 674, 677 (Tex. Civ. App., Galveston 1928, writ ref’d); and see Benavides v. Garcia, 290 S.W. 739, 740 (Tex. Com. App. 1927, jdgmt adopted). See also Ulbricht v. Friedsam, 159 Tex. 607, 325 S.W.2d 669, 674 (1959). Even the notation “Refused, No Reversible Error” under present rule 483 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure may indicate approval of the judgment, as distinguished from the opinion, when the particular holding attacked on application for writ of error is necessary to the judgment of the court of civil appeals. Simpson and Wall, Problems of Precedent Affecting Court of Civil Appeals Opinions, 4 Sw.L.J. 398, 403 (1950). Under the practice when Patton was decided, “Refused” was at least this strong.
We conclude, moreover, that the amendment of the same statute in 1975 was a legislative adoption of the construction given that statute in Patton. At the time of the 1975 amendment, the statute was in all respects now material exactly the same as the statute before the court in Patton. See Tex. Laws 1892, ch. 6, at 5; 10 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas, 369 (1898). The rule is well settled that when a statute is re-enacted without material change, it is presumed that the legislature knew and adopted the interpretation placed on the original act and intended the new enactment to receive the same construction. Love v. Wilcox, 119 Tex. 256, 28 S.W.2d 515, 524 (1930); In re Estates of Carrigan, 517 S.W.2d 817, 819 (Tex. Civ. App., Tyler 1974, no writ); and see Marmon v. Mustang Aviation, Inc., 430 S.W.2d 182, 187 (Tex. 1968).
Appellees do not contend that the amendment should be construed literally with respect to pre-existing judgments so that the new rate should apply retroactively “from and after the date of the judgment,” as the statute provides. They contend, rather, that the amendment should be construed as if it provided that the new rate should apply from the effective date of the amendment only. No language in the statute indicates a legislative intent that the amendment should be so applied. If the legislature in 1975 had intended to make the change in rate applicable to pre-existing judgments after the effective date of the amendment, it could easily have so provided. Its failure to do so is evidence that it did not so intend, particularly in the light of the construction of the 1892 amendment in Patton.
Appellees Manley and Phillips contend that Patton was incorrectly decided because the rate of interest on a judgment is not a matter of contract, but rather a matter of damages for wrongful withholding of money adjudged to be due, and that the rate of damages is controlled by the statute rather than by the judgment. Although this argument might be plausible in the absence of authority, we conclude that the Patton construction of the statute, which has presumably been approved by the supreme court and adopted by the 1975 amendment, has established the Texas rule to be that the rights of the parties as embodied in a judgment, including the rate of interest after judgment, are not changed by a subsequent change in the law.
Appellees argue that Patton is inconsistent with the subsequent opinion of the supreme court in Watkins v. Junker, 90 Tex. 584, 40 S.W. 11, 12 (1897). In that case the supreme court held that prejudgment interest allowed as damages on the principal amount recovered should accrue at the old rate until the effective date of the statute changing the rate and then at the new rate. That decision, in our opinion, is distinguish*208able because the change in the law was made before judgment, and, consequently, the case was not within the principle on which Patton rests, that the rate of interest, like other rights of the parties, is finally settled by the judgment.
Moreover, Watkins does not detract from the authority of Patton because it is not based on the same statute that was before the court in Patton. The Watkins opinion does not cite the particular statute referred to, but it cites two earlier cases holding that prejudgment interest allowed as damages is determined by analogy to the statute fixing the “legal” rate of interest on sums payable on contracts when no rate of interest is agreed on. These cases are Heidenheimer v. Ellis, 67 Tex. 426, 3 S.W. 666, 667 (1887), and Close v. Fields, 13 Tex. 623, 625 (1855). This statute, as well as the statute construed in Patton, was amended by the act of 1892 to change the rate from eight to six percent. Tex. Laws 1892, ch. 6, at 4; 10 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas, 368 (1898).
Appellees rely also on Southwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. Hertz Equipment Rental Co., 533 S.W.2d 853 (Tex. Civ. App., Fort Worth 1976, writ ref’d n.r.e.), and Donahue v. Rattikin Title Co., 534 S.W.2d 156 (Tex. Civ. App., Fort Worth 1976, no writ). In each of those cases the trial court had denied recovery before September 1, 1975, and the appellate court, in reversing and rendering judgment for plaintiff after that date, provided for interest at six percent before September 1,1975, and nine percent thereafter. Appellees argue that since the appellate court was bound to render the judgment which the trial court should have rendered under rule 434, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, the court had to determine the same question as that now before us. We do not regard those cases as authoritative because, apart from the question of whether the change in the statutory rate would apply to a subsequent judgment rendered on appeal, neither of those opinions indicates that the rate of interest was a contested matter in the appellate court, and neither shows that the Patton decision was called to the court’s attention.
The order denying the temporary injunction is reversed, and we issue our temporary injunction restraining the sheriff and the other appellees from levying execution for an amount in excess of six percent per annum until final judgment on the merits.

. Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 5069—1.05 (Vernon Supp. 1976).