Court Opinion

ID: 9827794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:51:35.643991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:36.821282
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
We have carefully considered appellees’ motion for a rehearing and conclude that same should be overruled.
In Compton v. Elliott (Tex.Com.App.) 88 S.W.(2d) 91, decided since our original opinion was delivered, it is held, in effect, that a party seeking to maintain a suit against a nonresident defendant, who has plead his privilege to be sued in the county of his residence, must allege and prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, all necessary facts to maintain venue in the county where suit is brought.
 It is clear that appellees did not prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that they had a cause of action against Hoerster. The trial judge instructed a verdict against appellants, thereby deciding as a matter of law that appellees had no cause of action against Hoerster, the resident defendant, and even relieved him from the payment of any costs. Appellees made no complaint of this action of the trial judge. If it was appellees’ position that they had established a cause of action against Hoer-ster by a preponderance of the evidence, it was their duty to have insisted that the jury be permitted to pass upon this matter, and that the proper issues be submitted to them, to entitle them to make a finding upon this question; and if the court failed to grant this request they should have excepted to his action in so refusing. Ap-pellees having made no such request, but, on the contrary, having insisted upon an instructed verdict in their favor, waived such matter and cannot now be heard to complain. Ormsby v. Ratcliffe, 117 Tex. *683242, 1 S.W.(2d) 1084. There can now be no question but that a jury may be demanded for the purpose of passing upon questions of fact involved in a plea of privilege hearing. The question of the preponderance of evidence is a matter that can properly be submitted to a jury. See, also, Stone Fort Nat. Bank of Nacogdoches v. B. L. Forbess, 91 S.W.(2d) 674, and Curlee Clothing Co. v. C. L. Wickliffe, 91 S.W.(2d) 677, both opinions delivered by the Supreme Court on February 12, 1936, but not yet reported [in State report],
The point that we are here making is, that where by agreement a cause is heard upon its merits and upon a question of venue at one and the same time, and upon the same evidence, and where venue in the county of the suit depends tipon the plaintiff’s establishing a cause of action, by the preponderance of the evidence, against the resident defendant, the court cannot instruct the jury td find only against the nonresident defendants, thereby necessarily finding, as a matter of law, that plaintiff does not have a cause of action against the resident defendant, and at the same time retain venue of the cause under subdivision 4 of art. 1995, R.S.1925, which depends upon plaintiff’s showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he has a cause of action against the resident defendant.
The appellees herein, by agreeing to submit this cause on its merits and upon the question of venue to the court upon the same evidence, began this trial faced with the dilemma that if they established their cause of action by a preponderance of the evidence against the nonresident defendants, who are the appellants herein, they must necéssarily lose on the question of venue, as they could only establish a cause of action against Hoerster, the resident defendant, in the event they failed to prevail against the nonresident defendants.
It is true that, had appellees insisted, they would have been entitled to have these matters submitted to the jury. However, the jury in this cause could not have, in answer to one issue, found that the preponderance of the evidence established a good cause of action against nonresident defendants, and at the same time have found that that same preponderance of the evidence showed a good cause of action against Hoerster. Such findings would necessarily have to be in conflict, one with the other, and could not become the basis of a binding judgment.
Appellees’ motion for a rehearing is overruled.