Court Opinion

ID: 9762402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:22:22.116555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:34.203799
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing
The motions for rehearing of Snap-Pac, Transport Insurance Company and Robertson Tank Lines, Inc. are all overruled.
We will merely write on the motions of Transport Insurance and Robertson insofar as they complain that the trial court held they were not before the court on their alleged petition in intervention.
The suit was filed by McWilliams, an employee of Robertson, against Snap-Pac to recover for injuries suffered by him. The suit in nowise put in issue any rights of Robertson whose transport truck was damaged. Transport Insurance was properly allowed to intervene to recoup the workmen’s compensation it had paid Mc-Williams. However, Transport and Robertson sought through intervention to recover for the damage to the truck. This was the assertion of a separate independent cause of action. No citation was issued for or served on Snap-Pac. These alleged intervenors merely delivered a copy of the petition to Snap-Pac. Snap-Pac never made an appearance as to this intervention. The position of Transport and Robertson is that they had a right to intervene under Rule 60, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, subject to the intervention being stricken, and that under Rule 72, T. R.C.P., the only notice required is delivery of a copy to the opposite party who has answered, or his attorney.
We are unable to agree with such position under the facts of this case.
Rule 60 does, we think, allow intervention by one who would be a proper party, subject to the right of the court to strike the intervention. However, to inter*949vene and obtain service by merely delivering a copy of the petition, presupposes that the intervenor has some interest in the recovery sought by a party to the suit or in protecting its rights against some asserted liability. Rule 72 provides that delivery of the copy of a pleading, motion, etc., suffices where the character of the pleading, etc., is such as “is not by law or these rules required to be served upon the adverse party.’’ Where a third party comes into a suit and asserts a separate independent cause of action, he must obtain service of citation in the absence of a waiver or appearance.
A discussion of the nature of intervention may be found in 24 Tex.Jur.2d, Sections 40-44, pp. 190-196, and 1 McDonald, Texas Civil Practice, Sections 3.46-3.47. This intervention is of a nature that requires service of citation.