Court Opinion

ID: 9832178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:41:21.561114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:43.505991
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In the recent case of Hill v. Brown, 237 S. W. 252, decided by our Supreme Court, it was held that an injunction will not lie if the plaintiff has an adequate remedy at law for the injury complained of; and, as held in the decisions cited in our original opinion, not only is the burden upon the plaintiff to allege facts which clearly show his right to injunctive relief, but such allegations must be sufficiently certain to negative every reasonable inference arising from the facts pleaded, from which it might be deduced that he may not, under other supposable facts connected with the subject, be entitled to that relief.
The purpose of the present suit was to rescind and terminate the contract alleged in the petition and to thus deprive the defendant of the rights originally vested in it, under and by virtue of the terms of the contract. That right was a vested right. The plaintiff’s petition was not based upon the theory that the defendant had abandoned the contract, but solely upon the theory that it had breached it, and that, by reason of such breach, defendant’s rights under the contract had terminated. To so lose such rights would be in the nature of a forfeiture, as alleged in the petition, if not strictly and technically a forfeiture, as plaintiff now insists.
The petition contained no allegation that the defendant was insolvent and unable to respond in damages, and no sufficient showing that the breach of the two provisions in the contract set out in the petition had resulted or would result in irreparable injury to the plaintiff. By virtue of the writ grant-' ed, the defendant was summarily, and without an opportunity to be heard, deprived of all rights vested in it, under the contract pending the hearing of the case on its merits, and that, too, merely upon plaintiff’s verified, petition.
Furthermore,-it is a familiar principle that the writ of injunction may be used to prevent, in juries but cannot afford a remedy for injuries already inflicted. Whitaker v. Dillard, 81 Tex. 359, 16 S. W. 1084. In plaintiff’s petition, following allegations of breach of the provisions of two of the paragraphs of the ebntract set out, and an alleged forfeiture of all of defendant’s rights under the contract by reason of such breaches, are the following allegations with respect to threatened injuries in the future, which are the only allegations of threatened future injuries:
“It is further shown to the court that, notwithstanding this, defendant by its agent and servants had heretofore entered upon said premises and' has willfully and maliciously torn up and destroyed the connections made by plaintiff to plaintiff’s said lease upon said property for the *454purpose of utilizing casing head gas therefrom, and the shid defendant, its agents, and servants are now threatening to re-enter upon said premises and to again tear up and disconnect plaintiff’s said connections and to take the property of plaintiff, to wit, casing head gas, by force.”
It clearly appears that, by virtue of the terms of the two paragraphs of the contract set out, the defendant had the exclusive right to go upon the lease and to make such pipe connections with the wells as might be necessary to utilize casing head gas therefrom, and to that end to remove any such pipe connections as plaintiff might make for the purpose of taking casing head gas from the wells for its own use, during the life of the contract. The petition contains no allegation to the effect that the defendant has threatened or probably will breach the contract in the future, as. plaintiff alleges has been done in the past. Allegations in the petition plainly imply that plaintiff has already claimed a forfeiture of all of defendant’s rights under the contract on account of alleged breaches of its provisions, and by reason of such claim has ousted defendant of possession of the lease and has begun to take the output of the wells, to the exclusion of the defendant. And the injunction sought and granted was to restrain defendant from any interference with plaintiff in its present possession and use of the wells, the only alleged basis for which was the alleged prior breaches of the contract by the defendant.
We express no opinion as to the merits of the case. What we have said applies only to the issue of plaintiff’s right to the issuance of the temporary writ of injunction.
' The motion is overruled.