Court Opinion

ID: 9669428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:56:05.720466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:56.720571
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
In its motion for rehearing, De-Witt County Electric Cooperative, Inc. acknowledges that the instructed verdict in its favor did not dispose of the Cooperative’s counterclaim for attorney fees. The Cooperative concedes that the resulting judgment was not final at the time it was initially appealed and remanded. See N.Y. Underwriters v. Sanchez, 799 S.W.2d 677, 678-79 (Tex.1990) (holding that claim for attorney fees omitted from summary judgment motion remained pending so that order granting motion was interlocutory and not appealable). Intervening events have not made the judgment any more final. In this circumstance, even if the Cooperative had indicated in its motion for rehearing its intention to abandon the counterclaim, which it did not, no procedure is available to permit it do so on appeal. Procedures for finalizing the judgment are available, however, at the trial court. See Tex.R. Civ. P. 162 (non-suit); Tex.R. Civ. P. 165 (abandonment); see also Iacono v. Lyons, 6 S.W.3d 715 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1999, no pet.) (per curiam).
Rule 165 reads as follows:
A party who abandons any part of his claim or defense, as contained in the pleadings, may have that fact entered of record, so as to show that the matters therein were not tried.
Tex.R. Civ. P. 165. The Cooperative did not avail itself of the abandonment procedure before judgment. For this reason and for the reasons stated in our opinion, we deny the motion for rehearing.