Court Opinion

ID: 9654252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:11:44.897794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:07.304998
License: Public Domain

GRAY, Justice
(dissenting).
I agree with the conclusion reached by the majority but I do not agree with the reasons stated to support that conclusion and for that reason I respectfully record my dissent.
The order of November 10, 1954, granting appellees a nonsuit was unauthorized and is a nullity. This action (the filing of the application and the order granting it) was taken after the trial court had entered its orders on appellees’ prior applications. See Rule 164, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Such action was also taken at a term of court subsequent to the' term, at which the prior applications were heard and judgments rendered thereon. See Art. 199, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. Further it should not be noticed because the prior judgments afforded appellees th.e relief prayed for and those judgments had been fully complied with. Appellees: were left in full possession of the benefits-.accruing to them by reason thereof. . ■ .
The application filed by appellee's on July 16, 1954, prayed that the court
“ * * * order said Maude Gállo-way to appear and show cause why the - said minor, "Gloria Dell .Galloway, should not 'be returned to the care and custody of the applicants pursuant. to the order of this 'Court' entered ⅛ Cause Number 92,502 on June 6, 1952. Applicants further pray that upon hearing this Court order"'said Maude Galloway to return said minor, Gloria Dell Galloway to the care and custody of the applicants.”
Necessarily the welfare and best interest of the minor was put in issue, and the divorce judgment which awarded the custody of the minor to appellees was a final adjudication of .such,, custody until such time only as changed conditions might require a change of custody.
The venue of subsequent suits for custody of minors is not eontrolléd by the prior judgment awarding custody.
I agree that this appeal should be dismissed because A.rt. 2008, Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St., authorizes either party to appeal from a judgment sustaining or overruling a plea of privilege and suspends a trial on the merits only if the appeal is from a judgment sustaining the plea. Here the appeal is from the judgment sustaining a special exception, striking and overruling the plea and the trial of the cause was not suspended pending the appeal. Goolsby v. Bond, 138 Tex. 485, 163 S.W.2d 830..
*130No appeal having been taken from the orders of the trial court on appellees’ applications and those orders having become final, the questions relative to venue presented by this appeal have become moot and the appeal must be dismissed. Allen v. Woodward, 111 Tex. 457, 239 S.W. 602, 22 A.L.R. 1253; Motor Securities Corporation v. Jones, Tex.Civ.App., 90 S.W.2d 858; Pugh v. Childress & Marshall, Tex.Civ.App., 207 S.W.2d 182; A. B. Richards Medicine Co. v. Avant, Tex.Civ.App., 275 S.W. 260. The judgment that appellants seek here, even if rendered, could not have any practical legal effect because the judgment on appellees’ application having become final it cannot be said that a legal controversy exists. Richburg v. Fore, Tex.Civ.App., 190 S.W.2d 164; Parks v. Francis, Tex.Civ.App., 202 S.W.2d 683.
It. is my opinion that this appeal must be dismissed for the reason herein stated and I concur only in the conclusion announced by the majority opinion.