Court Opinion

ID: 9833459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:44:38.781817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:03.248749
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing
Both parties have filed motions for rehearing, appellant praying, “That that part of this court’s judgment which reverses the judgment of the court below as a whole, and remands the cause, be set aside, and that judgment of this Court he reformed and amended, as follows”, etc., while the appellee urges “that the Court of Civil Appeals affirm the judgment of the Trial Court, and in add'tion thereto, reform the same so as to include in its judgment the sum of $37,651.56, together with accrued interest thereon, being the amount of oil received by Appellant but not accounted for from January 1, 1930, to October 1, 1937; and that further, this cause be reversed and remanded as to the ‘district expense’, for the appointment of an auditor by the Trial Court to make an audit”, etc.
Upon the reconsideration, however, this court is constrained not only to adhere to its former holding that the issue of limitation — permeating as it did every item sued upon by appellee — was controlling, so far as it reached upon what may have been the facts, and was erroneously held wholly inapplicable by the trial court, but also to decide no other question of substantive law, unless and until the appealed-from judgment is purged of the injurious effect of that error upon the rights of the parties; this for the reason that it clearly appears here that such error affects severable parts only of the matters in controversy between the parties, and is susceptible of a correction and elimination by further action thereon by the trial court.
In such circumstances, it seems to be the proper practice, under the concluding paragraph of Rule 434, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, for the Court of Civil Appeals not to reverse the judgment of the court below as a whole, which was the effect of the order’entered herein by this court on original hearing, but, instead, to hold the cause here in abeyance meanwhile, and to direct the court below to correct such error in a rehearing upon that issue only. That, indeed, was the objective of this court’s former determination, which was, as indicated, inadvertently misstated.
Our appellate courts seem to have so construed that provision of cited Rule 434. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Lightfoot, 139 Tex. 304, 162 S.W.2d 929; Brown v. Neyland, Tex.Civ.App., 161 S.W.2d 833, modified 141 Tex. 253, 172 S.W.2d 89; Garcia v. Garza, Tex.Civ.App., 161 S.W.2d 297; Saladiner v. Palanco, Tex.Civ.App., 160 S.W.2d 537.
*321This Court’s former judgment will accordingly be so modified, and the trial court will be directed to retry the issue of limitation as to all the claims appellee sued upon against appellant, hearing the pleadings and the evidence relating thereto, and determining as to each and all of them, both in whole and in part, what ones became due, or what parts thereof became due, prior to November 13, of 1936. It will be so ordered. Both motions are overruled.
Motions overruled.
On Motion for Entry of Final Judgment
The appellee has moved this court “to enter a final judgment in conformity with per curiam opinion rendered by the Supreme Court in this cause on October 11, 1944.” A copy of that opinion was certified to and filed in this court for observance, on October 30, 1944.
That court had theretofore granted the appellee’s application for a writ of error against this court’s judgment herein, of April 20, 1944, remanding the cause to the trial court for a retrial upon the issues of limitation therein involved only, holding the balance of the cause in abeyance meanwhile undisposed of upon its own docket. Thereafter, however, the Supreme Court concluded that it had first granted such application for writ of error “under a misunderstanding of the status of the case”, and on such date of October 11, 1944, it withdrew that order, and dismissed the cause from its docket, in the opinion the appellee here invokes, the substance of which is this:
“While we have acquired no jurisdiction of the case and can enter no effective order therein, except an order dismissing the application for writ of error, still in view of the contentions urged here, and as further action in the case must be taken by the Court of Civil Appeals, we deem it not improper to point out that we do not agree with the construction given by that court to Rule 434. We construed that rule in Texas Employers Insurance Association v. Lightfoot, 139 Tex. 304, 162 S.W.2d 929, 930, and pointed out that since it was but a bringing forward and readoption of old Rule 62a, it should be given the construction theretofore given to that rule. In that opinion we expressly held that Rule 434 did not authorize the Court to try “an indivisible cause of action by piecemeal.”
The appellee’s motion herein will be granted. While its-terms disclose that the Supreme Court’s quoted opinion did not hold the cause of action sued upon by the appellee herein against the appellant to be an indivisible one, except inferentially, this court regards that as its intended meaning, hence proceeds, as in conformity thereto, sets aside its former judgment of April 20, 1944, and now undertakes a decision of what it conceives to be the “indivisible cause of action” the Supreme Court so construed appellee’s suit herein to embody.
The record discloses that it did comprehend a number of decidedly different elements, in that the appellee sued appellant herein on eight distinctly different claims, or asserted causes of action, arising out of widely different activities between the two litigating companies under the same general contract in writing, to-wit: .
“No. 1 — Profit on fresh water.
“No. 2 — Profit on Breaxit and Lub oil.
“No. 3 — Cash Discounts.
“No. 4 — Volume-Purchase Discount.
“No. S — Profit on trucks and tractors.
“No. 6 — Over Assessment on salt water disposal.
“No. 7 — Transporting second-hand material.
“No. 8 — Tank Table Strappage Deductions.”
Such being their nature and effect, it is thought any one of them may be finally disposed of by this court, independently of the others, since it does not understand the Supreme Court to mean that it cannot still affirm a cause in part and reverse it ■in part.
This court in its original opinion herein, filed March 1, 1944, held that all of such enumerated claims, in whole or in part, that were shown to have become due prior to November 13 of 1936, were barred by the four-year statute of limitation, under the construction it gave the terms of the contract between the parties. Without re-discussion of it here, that holding is adhered to and reiterated.
It is now further found and held:
(1) Under the information furnished in appellant’s cited reply to the ap-*322pellee’s motion to enter final judgment, that all these portions of such claims were more than four years old on that date — November 13 of 1936 — hence were so barred in their entirety by that statute, to-wit:
£3. Cash discounts received by the defendant on equipment and supplies purchased by it and used on the properties owned jointly by plaintiff and defendant and not credited to the Joint Account, in the principal sum of $9,263.12, together with interest accrued thereon in the sum of $6,152.87, said interest being calculated at the rate of six per cent (6%) per annum from the following dates to December 31, 1942, on the following amounts:
“4. Volume purchase discounts received by the defendant and allocable to materials and equipment purchased by it and used on properties owned jointly by plaintiff and defendant and not credited to the Joint Account, in the principal sum of $1,113.71, together with interest accrued thereon in the sum of $835.53, said interest being calculated at the rate of six per cent (6%) per annum from the following dates to December 31, 1942, on the following amounts :
“6. Overassessment by the defendant, and charged to the plaintiff by reason of salt water disposal, in the principal sum of $6,419.68, together with interest accrued thereon in the sum of $4,622.17, said interest being calculated at the rate of six per cent (6%) per annum from January 1, 1931, to December 31, 1942, totalling $11,041.85.”
“8. Two per cent (2%) tank table strap-page deduction from the time of the first production from the jointly-owned leases to December 31, 1929, in the principal sum of $25,198.52, together with $19,654.85 interest accrued thereon from January 1, 1930, to December 31, 1942, totaling $44,853.37.”
The quoted numbers, items, and amounts, which aggregate the sum of $73,260.45, have been taken from the trial court’s judgment, and follow the wording of its decree.
' That judgment foi; the recited final sum of $127,827.30, in so far as it included this aggregate of $73,260.45, herein held to have been barred, is therefore reversed, and the cause as to these items and that accrued total thereof is here rendered in appellant’s favor against the appellee.

(2)The appellant also contends that it likewise appears from this record and the evidence therein contained, that out of the remaining items and claims upon which the balance of the trial court’s $127,827.30 judgment was rendered against it in favor of appellee, that these portions thereof, to-talling $2,690.47, were not barred by limitation, as so ruled upon by this court, to-wit:

*323This court, however, is unable to agree with appellant that the evidence so shows, concluding, otherwise, that its condition is such that this court may not determine here what portions of such amounts were barred.
Wherefore, as to those items, the cause must be reversed and remanded to the trial court.
(3) Likewise, the appellee, by cross-assignments upon this appeal, sought a rendition in its favor here on two claims upon which judgment was rendered Below in appellant’s favor, namely, first, the claim involving “district expenses”, and, second, the claim for the 2% deducted during the years of the operations involved, other than 1929, by the pipeline company running the oil; but, while this court’s holding on appellant’s pleas of limitation would likewise apply to them, there is no evidence in the record as to their resulting status, nor as to what part thereof would or would not be barred by the application of that ruling, since, as recited in our Qriginal opinion herein, “the trial court, under its holding that appellant’s 4-year plea of limitation was inapplicable, excluded evidence it tendered as showing all the underlying facts.”
These conclusions require that appellee’s motion to enter final judgment herein be granted, as indicated supra, and that the trial court’s judgment be in part reversed and rendered, and in part reversed and remanded, in accordance with this opinion. It will be so ordered.
Motion to enter final judgment granted, trial court’s judgment reversed and rendered in part, and reversed and remanded in part.