Court Opinion

ID: 9829898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:42:47.548384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:08.517024
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Motion for Rehearing.
Article 1983, Vernon’s Ann.Civ. Stats., provides that the husband may sue ■either alone or jointly for the recovery of the property of the wife, and that she may sue alone by authority of the court if he fails to join. In order to sue alone, it is held that she must allege and prove that her husband has failed and neglected to prosecute such suit or join her in the prosecution thereof, and must specifically allege facts which show the property sought to be recovered belongs to her. Newell v. State, Tex.Civ.App., 103 S.W.2d 194. The fact that the husband joins pro forma, it is held, will not satisfy the statute, and is the equivalent of the wife suing alone. Id. We concluded on original hearing that where the husband was joined in the suit, even pro forma, that it should be held that he sued jointly for the purposes of the statute, and that the point was too technical to justify a reversal. We are constrained to hold on rehearing that we were in error, and the appellants sufficiently raised the point by urging a general demurrer which should have been sustained.
It is manifest that the husband was joined only pro forma in this case, and that appellee’s position to the contrary is untenable.
The judgment of the trial court must therefore be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
Appellants’ motion for rehearing is granted, the former judgment set aside, the trial court’s judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.