Court Opinion

ID: 9832969
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:20:35.689853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:56.749690
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee issued an execution out of the justice court of Denton county, which the sheriff of Lubbock county was about to levy upon the property belonging to appellant. Appellant secured an injunction from the district judge of Lubbock county, temporarily restraining the sheriff from making such levy. The appellee, who resided in Denton county, filed her plea of privilege. The petition showed that the execution sought to be enjoined was based upon a judgment rendered in Denton county. In our opinion, rendered a former day of this term, we held that the court should have sustained the plea of privilege and exceptions to the jurisdiction of the court filed by Mrs. Fain, and transferred the cause to Denton county.
[2] After her plea of privilege and exceptions had been overruled, appellee proceeded to trial upon the merits, and verdict and judgment were rendered in her favor. On appeal she has filed a brief in this court, in which there is first presented for our consideration her cross-assignments, challenging the action of the court in overruling her plea of privilege and exceptions to the jurisdiction of the district court of Lubbock county to try said cause.
She might have waived the question of venue and jurisdiction in the district court, but her plea and exceptions were filed in due order and considered by the court. In her brief she still insists upon her plea of privilege and exceptions before this court. If the point had been waived by not being briefed, this court could not and would not have considered the question, but since it was fully briefed and insisted upon by her, although in a cross-assignment ..of error, it is necessarily the first question to be 'Considered, since this court ’cannot properly retain jurisdiction of the cause if the .lower court should not have done ^so. She not only did not waive the point in her brief, but is still insisting upon it in her motion for a rehearing. It becomes our duty under such circumstances to consider first the question of the right of the trial court to hear the case upon the merits. Appellee could have urged her objection to the trial' court hearing the case upon the merits, and, after said court had held adversely against her upon that point and judgment had been rendered in her favor, she could have waived the question in this court. She is not doing so, .and the right of the court to try the case upon the merits is properly the first issue for this court to consider. We have heretofore passed upon it in appellee’s favor, and her motion for rehearing is overruled.
Appellant has also filed a motion for rehearing, insisting that our former opinion is erroneous. Having carefully reviewed the authorities cited in the motion and briefs upon these issues, we are not disposed to change our ruling, and still hold that, if the trial court had no jurisdiction of the case, judgment rendered upon the merits cannot be permitted to stand, and appellant’s motion for rehearing is also overruled.
[3] The rule being that, if the court a quo did not properly have and retain jurisdiction of the case, the appellate court cannot have jurisdiction, then it is clear to us that the objections which appellee urged in the lower court, and which we have held deprived that court of jurisdiction to render judgment upon the merits, being still urged in this court, although they might have been waived in this court, as well as in the lower court, have the effect of depriving this court of any jurisdiction to pass upon any other question than that raised by appellee’s cross-assignment.