Court Opinion

ID: 9768902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 13:55:29.825702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:11.464117
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Smith,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent to that part of the opinion ordering a general remand of this case. The nature of the judgment entered by the Court of Civil Appeals can best be determined by the controlling view expressed in the court’s opinion, which is that there was no evidence supporting the jury findings. It is the height of folly to order a general remand in this case. The remand has been ordered merely because the Court of Civil Appeals, after writing several pages holding “no evidence,” a complete absence of evidence, etc., on all of the controlling issues added:
“Moreover, we think the jury's answer to Issue No. 5 is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of all the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust under the doctrine announced in In Re King’s Estate, 150 Texas 662, 244 S.W. 2d 660. What we have just said we think applies with equal force to the jury’s answer to Special Issue No. 6.” [327 S.W. 2d 691.]
In view of the court’s holding on the no evidence points, there can be no doubt as to what the court meant when it said the jury verdict was clearly wrong and unjust. It was clearly wrong and unjust because there was no evidence to support the verdict, and not because of the doctrine in the King Estate case. There is not one word in the opinion prior to the declaration in regard to the King Estate case which can be construed to mean that the writer intended a general remand of this case. The remand was for one purpose only and that was for the trial court to determine the amount of the indebtedness and the legal interest due thereon.
The petitioner necessarily had to take this view, otherwise his petition for writ of error would have never been granted.
Why do I say the Court of Appeals, in effect, reversed and *348remanded with instructions? The opinion groups the questions presented by Eidson. The court said:
“* * * We have grouped them into the following: (1) Since the evidence shows without dispute that the deeds in question and the stock were given in one transaction by Eidson to the bank for the purpose of securing his indebtedness to the bank, that such transaction created the relationship of mortgagor and mortgagee, and that such situation continued until it was proven otherwise; (2) Since the evidence shows that there was no foreclosure on the land or stock the relation of mortgagor and mortgagee continued to exist at all times between Eidson and the bank, and such relationship existed when appellants filed their suit; (3) That the jury’s answer to issues I and 4 do not support a judgment in favor of the bank; (4) That the answers of the jury to issues 4, 5 and 6 are not sustained by the evidence, and that the answer to each of said issues is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of all the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust and will not sustain the judgment of the court.”
Then the court proceeds to sustain each group of no evidence points. Now, if the court had held that there was some evidence to support the jury’s answers, but that the answers of the jury were so contrary to the overwhelming weight of all the evidence as to be clearly wrong and unjust under the King Estate doctrine, a general remand would, no doubt, be in order. The record in this case shows beyond question that that Law Review Article by my distinguished Associatiate and the Per Curiam doctrine in King Estate has no application. The opinion in this case completely cuts the ground from under the bank and leaves no ultimate issue for a retrial, except the amount of indebtedness and interest. I would reverse and remand only for a determination of this latter question.
Opinion delivered October 19, 1960.
Rehearing overruled December 21, 1960.