Court Opinion

ID: 9827798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:51:42.75248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:30.141904
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[6] Appellants urge that as the trial court found that the services rendered by plaintiffs were performed in the precinct and county where the suit was filed, and as the trial court may properly, as was evidently done in this case, defer action on the plea of privilege until the evidence has been introduced on the merits (Tynberg v. Cohen, 76 Tex. 409, 13 S. W. 315; Holmes v. Coalson, 178 S. W. 634), we were in error in holding that *716there was no evidence in the record tending to establish plaintiffs’ claim that the services were performed in Jones county. No statement of facts accompanies the record. The codrt does find that “the services performed and rendered by the plaintiffs at the instance and request of the defendant, were rendered in precinct No. 5, Jones county, Texas.” But the court further concludes as a matter of law that “W. J. Alexander’s plea of privilege should be sustained”; also, in the decree of the court sustaining the plea of privilege, it is recited:
“And it further appearing to the court that none of the exceptions to exclusive venue in the county and precinct of one’s residence, mentioned in articles 1830 and 2308 of the Revised Statutes of the state of Texas, exist in this cause, the court is therefore of the opinion and finds that defendant’s plea of privilege should be sustained.”
We have concluded that in the absence of the statement of facts, the finding of fact by the trial court that the services rendered by the plaintiffs were performed in the county and precinct where the suit was filed is conclusive as to that issue. Garner v. Black, 95 Tex. 125, 63 S. W. 918. In plaintiff’s controverting answer to defendant’s plea of privilege it was alleged that the labor performed and personal services rendered by plaintiffs were performed in said precinct and county. The court further found that defendant agreed to pay plaintiffs $100 for their services in procuring for him a purchaser of his land, and that plaintiffs procured a purchaser who was ready, able, and willing to purchase the land upon terms satisfactory to defendant and that the consummation of the deal between the defendant and the prospective purchaser failed because defendant did not furnish a complete and valid abstract of title, as he had agreed to do. The court further found, as a conclusion of law, that plaintiffs were entitled to recover from defendant, under the facts in the case, the sum of $10S, the amount sued for.
[7] We have concluded that we erred in our former disposition of this case, providing it can reasonably be held that the amendment to subd. 4, art. 2308, Yernon’s Sayles’ Texas Civil Statutes, as amended by the Thirty-Fifth Legislature, is applicable. It will be noted that under said amendment the venue of suits to recover “for labor actually performed” is fixed in the county “where such labor is performed, whether the contract for same be oral or in writing.” Are the services of a real estate broker, in securing a purchaser for land, “labor,” as that term is used in this amendment? In Words and Phrases, p. 1320, it is said:
“The word ‘labor,’ in legal parlance, has a well-defined, understood, and accepted meaning. It implies continued exertion of the more onerous. and inferior kind, usually and chiefly consisting in the protracted exertion of muscular force. ‘Labor may be business, but it is not necessarily so, and business is not always labor. In legal significance, labor implies toil; exertion producing weariness; manual exertion of a toilsome nature.”
In City of Topeka v. Crawford, 78 Kan. 583, 96 Pac. 862, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1156, 16 Ann. Cas. 403, it was held that to keep open, manage, and superintend a theater and sell tickets therein on Sunday was “labor,” within the meaning of an ordinance prohibiting the performance of unnecessary labor on Sunday. The running of a pool room on Sunday was held to constitute a violation of the Penal Code, prohibiting labor on Sunday in Ex parte Axsom, 63 Tex. Cr. R. 627, 141 S. W. 793, 40 L. R. A. (N. S.) 179, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 794. The services of a superintendent in charge of dredging work were held to he in the nature of labor in United States v. U. S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 139 App. Div. 262, 123 N. Y. Supp. 938, 943. The caption of the act amending this subdivision of article 2308 recites that it is an act “providing that all suits to recover for labor performed or any kind of personal services rendered may, at the option of the plaintiff, be brought and maintained where such labor is performed or personal services rendered.” In Sutherland on Statutory Construction (1891) p. 279, § 211, it is said:
“But the title of an act is now so associated with it in the process of legislation that when, in performing it's constitutional functions, it affords means of determining the legislative intent, in cases of doubt its help cannot be rejected for being extrinsic and extralegislative. The language of an act should be construed in view of its title and its lawful purposes; broad language should be confined to lawful objects. The subject or object expressed in the title fixes a limit to the1 scope of the* act, and provisions not germane, but foreign, to such subject will be excluded as unconstitutional and void.”
So we have concluded that the term “labor,” used in the amendment aforesaid, should be given an interpretation broad enough to include services of the character here involved.
[8] The next question to be considered is: Should the amendment to article 2308, supra, be held applicable to a suit pending at the time of its passage? We have concluded the change made by the amendment affects only the remedy, and not the substantial rights of the parties, and that the law as it existed at the time of the trial, rather than at the time of the institution of the suit or the accruing of the cause of action, should con-' trol. See H. & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Graves, 50 Tex. 181; Phœnix Ins. Co. v. Shearman, 17 Tex. Civ. App. 456, 43 S. W. 931, 1063; Id., 93 Tex. 669; Tex. Midland Ry. Co. v. S. W. T. & T. Co., 24 Tex. Civ. App. 198, 58 S. W. 152. In Baines v. Jemison et al., 86 Tex. 118, 23 S. W. 639, it is said:
*717“Since the venue of a suit affects only the remedy, it is clear that it is in the power of the Legislature to amend the laws in relation to that matter, and to make the amendment applicable to causes of action that may have accrued before the passage of the act; and it may be that it would be competent to. so change the law as to confer local jurisdiction of a suit already pending upon the court in which it was instituted, although such court did not have jurisdiction at the time the action was brought. But upon this question we need give no opinion. Admitting the power of the Legislature in such a case, its intention would have to be clear before the courts would give the statute such a retroactive effect.”
See 36 Cye. p. 1217, to the same effect.
In the case last cited, the Supreme Court distinguishes the ease under consideration from that of H. & T. C. Ry. Co. v. Graves, supra, and notes that in the Graves Case the plaintiff amended his petition, so as to avail himself of the privilege conferred by> the new statute, and says:
“There the filing of the amended petition was the same as the institution of a new suit, and,' since this occurred after the new law had taken effect, the point was correctly decided.”
In the case at bar the pleadings were oral, except the verified plea of privilege by plaintiff and the controverting answer by defendant. This controverting answer was filed September 1, 1917, subsequent to the time when the amendment involved took effect. The other pleadings, being oral, are deemed to have been presented on the date of trial, to wit, October 23, 1917. Since in the county court the cause was tried de novo, we are of the opinion that, in holding that the county court of Jones county had jurisdiction of this cause by virtue of the amendment aforesaid, we are not in conflict with Baines v. Jemison et al. Since the amendment provides that suits for labor performed “may be brought and maintained where such labor is performed,”. we are further of the opinion that the amendment clearly indicates the legislative intent to make it applicable to cases for debt pending in thé county where the labor or services for which recovery was sought were performed. The word “maintained” has been defined as meaning to support that which has already been brought into existence. See Kendrick & Robert v. Warren Bros. Co., 110 Md. 47, 77 Atl. 461, 464; Words and Phrases, vol. 3, p. 210; Green tree v. Wallace, 77 Kan. 149, 93 Pac. 598. “Maintained” is defined in the Standard Dictionary as meaning “to hold or preserve in any particular state or condition.”
[9] For the reasons stated we have concluded that we erred in affirming the judgment of the trial court, and that the judgment should be reversed. It further appearing from the court’s findings of fact that un•der the evidence plaintiffs were entitled to •recover, barring the sustaining of the plea of privilege, of defendant the sum of $108, we are of the opinion that judgment should here be rendered for plaintiffs in said amount, with costs of the suit and 6 per cent, interest from date of judgment. The motion for rehearing is granted, our former judgment set aside, and the judgment of the trial court reversed, and judgment here rendered for appellants in the amount named.