Court Opinion

ID: 9642212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:52:12.728421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:44.460911
License: Public Domain

ON MOTIONS FOR REHEARING
Both parties have moved for rehearing.
Appellant contends that the jury verdict settled all justiciable issues between the parties and that we should reverse and render judgment for him for the amount of damages found by the jury. We cannot do this. Appellee’s case against appellant for the indebtedness claimed was never submitted to the jury. As shown by the judgment, the court sustained appellee’s motion for judgment before any charge was submitted to the jury. This was error requiring reversal. Appellee was not entitled to have its claim withdrawn from the jury and decided by the court as a matter of law, as was done, but it was entitled to have the issues involved in its claim submitted affirmatively to the jury. We remanded the case in order that that might be accomplished.
Appellant says that in that event we should remand only that part of the case which involves appellee’s claim and affirm that part of the judgment in appellant’s favor.
*470Appellee brought this suit originally, and if appellant had a claim against appellee arising “out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the opposing party’s claim,” he was compelled by subdivision (a) of Rule 97, T.R.C.P., to state it as a counterclaim in appellee’s suit. The fact that the rule makes it a compulsory counterclaim indicates clearly the policy of the law “to avoid circuity of action, inconvenience, expense and consumption of the court’s time in trying” such a counterclaim in an independent suit. Ulmer v. Mackey, Tex.Civ.App., 242 S.W.2d 679, 681, wr. ref. n. r. e.; Bolding v. Chapman, Tex.Civ.App., 394 S.W.2d 862, wr. ref. n. r. e. The entire case must be tried as one case; it cannot properly be tried piecemeal. It was tried on the wrong theory and must, therefore, be tried again.
Both motions for rehearing are overruled.