Court Opinion

ID: 9830607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:19:18.319581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:24.748553
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellees in, their motion for rehearing reassert the proposition presented in their original brief that appellant is not entitled to maintain this suit for the reason that he failed to take judgment in the original sequestration suit instituted by the appellees against him. In addition to the authorities cited in the original opinion, which we think are decisiye, we note Jacobs et al. v. Daugherty, 78 Tex. 682, 15 S. W. 160; Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland v. Texas Land & Mortgage Co., Limited, 40 Tex. Civ. App. 489, 90 S. W. 197; Wilson et al. v. Dickey, 63 Tex. Civ. App. 155, 133 S. W. 437.
Appellees contend that although good faith requires a litigant, who obtains possession of property solely through a writ of sequestration, to prosecute his suit to judgment, or restore the property, that the question of good faith is not involved in this suit, for the reason that the mortgage authorized appellees upon default in the payment of their debt to take possession of the car by any agency they selected and sell the same at public or private sale. “The law of the. place where the contract is entered into at the time of making the same is as much a part of the contract as though it were expressed or referred to therein.” 13 C. J. 560, par. 523. See Trinity Portland Cement Co. v. Lion Bonding & Surety Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 229 S. W. 483; Southern Surety Co. v. Klein (Tex. Civ. App.) 278 S. W. 527.
Appellees were authorized under their contract to take possession of the automobile by writ of sequestration upon appellant’s default in the payment of his notes, and when appellant failed in the time allowed him by law to replevy the automobile, appellees were authorized under the statute to give a replevy bond and take possession thereof. This they did, and in so doing they were within their rights under their contract.
However, after they elected to exercise their right to secure possession through the agency of the court, the law being a part of their contract, the duty to comply with the law was imposed upon them to the same extent as If it had been written in the contract that if they did secure possession of the automobile on default in the payment of the notes through the agency of the court, they would prosecute their suit to a final determination, and, if the suit was decided against them, they would restore the automobile to appellant; and when they permitted judgment to go against them, and failed to comply with the law, which was a part of their contract, they failed to exercise good faith, and appellant was entitled to a judgment against all the obligors on the replevy bond for the value of the property and the revenue therefrom, and, such judgment not having been entered, he was entitled to institute and maintain this suit for such damages as he may have suffered, and in any event was entitled to nominal damages. 34 Cyc. 1606; Sabine Motor Co. v. W. C. English Auto. Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 291 S. W. 1088.
The motion is overruled.