Court Opinion

ID: 9768103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:42:37.184553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:36.655183
License: Public Domain

SHANNON, Justice
(concurring).
I concur.
Arthur Young, Jr., filed a forcible detain-er suit in the justice court of Precinct Number One in McCulloch County. The defendant in that suit was Erick F. Meyer. The trial resulted in judgment for Young. Meyer appealed to the county court of McCul-loch County.
The judgment of the county court recited that the parties and their attorneys appeared, “. . . and announced ready upon Appellee’s Special Exceptions to the appeal of Appellant, and such appeal and exceptions thereto having been heard . it is the opinion of the Court that the law is with the Appellee.”
The judgment ordered . . such appeal be, and the same is hereby dismissed . ” The judgment did not award any damages.
The county court regarded, and necessarily treated, the special exceptions as pleas to its jurisdiction. Having determined those exceptions (pleas) adversely to Meyer, the court dismissed the appeal.
Texas Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. Art. 3992 provides that no appeal lies to the Court of Civil Appeals from a judgment of the county court in a forcible detainer suit unless the judgment awards damage in excess of one hundred dollars. Pizanie v. Citizens Investment Company, 448 S.W.2d 803 (Tex. Civ.App.1969, writ ref’d).
Although Art. 3992 precludes appellate review on the merits in a forcible detainer suit, the statute does not prevent this Court from determining whether the county court had jurisdiction of the cause.
Every court of limited powers must determine its own jurisdiction in the first instance, and it does so when it assumes to hear and determine a case or when it refuses to hear and determine a cause. That does not preclude another court of general powers from making the same inquiry. If another court were precluded from determining the lower court’s jurisdiction, the judgment of every court, however special and limited its authority, would be conclusive in all cases, except where some other court was vested with appellate powers. Lindsey v. Luckett, 20 Tex. 516 (1857), see Leslie v. Griffin, 25 S.W.2d 820 (Tex.Com. App.1930, jdgmt. adopted); McCauley v. Consolidated Underwriters, 157 Tex. 475, 304 S.W.2d 265 (1957). A similar rule obtains in the federal courts. Gully v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 292 U.S. 16, 54 S.Ct. 565, 78 L.Ed. 1088 (1934), United States v. Corrick, 298 U.S. 435, 56 S.Ct. 829, 80 L.Ed. 1263 (1936).