Court Opinion

ID: 9827491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:35:52.82508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:32.171448
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION EOB BEHEABING.
In support of the motion for rehearing it is urged that a bill of review “does not lie for errors of law apparent upon the face of the decree, but only for fraud, accident, or mistake in facts.” This contention is supported by decisions of our Supreme Court in proceedings to review final judgments other than those rendered in probate matters, and this rule, we.think, would govern in probate matters in the absence of a statute regulating the matter. We have a statute which in our opinion controls. *385In title 51, Revised Statutes, relating to guardian and ward, and chapter 20, relating to “appeals, bill of review, and certiorari,” article 2799, we have the following: “Any person interested may, by a bill of review filed in the court in which the proceedings were had, have any decision, order, or judgment rendered by such court, or by the judge thereof, revised and corrected on showing error therein.”
This to our minds is conclusive of the question under consideration. There is no exception or qualification as to the character of error in the judgment whether shown upon the face of the judgment or otherwise. The language is plain and emphatic, that by “showing error therein,” the order or judgment can be corrected by bill of review in the court where the proceedings were had. Our decisions hold that “a bill of review need not conform to the rules and is not limited by the restrictions of the equity practice as applicable to that remedy.” Jones v. Parker, 67 Texas, 76; Jansen v. Jacobs, 44 Texas, 573; Seguin v. Maverick, 24 Texas, 526.
The right to revise the proceedings of the probate court by bill of review is recognized by our Supreme Court in Jones v. Parker, supra, and Young v. Gray, 60 Texas, 541.
Plaintiffs in error cite in support of their contention the decision of Justice Stayton on rehearing in the ease of Heath v. Lane, 62 Texas, 686. In that case the action was brought in the District Court to review the action of the County Court in a probate proceeding. The court held the District Court had no jurisdiction to revise in that manner the proceedings of the County Court; that the District Court had only appellate and not original jurisdiction to revise.
Justice Stayton in discussing the general powers of probate courts holds, “Except as it is given by statute, a probate court has no power, by bill of review, to revise its own decisions.” He does not refer to the article of the statute above quoted by us, and it is evident to our minds that if he intended to hold that no bill of review would lie to revise the probate court under the statute, except as to the probating of a will, which is specially provided for by statute, he overlooked the article of the statute referred to.
In the ease of Young v. Gray, 60 Texas, 541, decided prior to, and the case of Jones v. Parker, 67 Texas, 76, decided after, the case of Heath v. Lane, supra, our Supreme Court recognizes the right to revise the action of the probate court by bill of review.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.

Overruled.

Writ of error refused.