Allen v. Wilkerson

396 S.W.2d 493, 1965 Tex. App. LEXIS 2597
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 17, 1965
Docket11339
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 396 S.W.2d 493 (Allen v. Wilkerson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allen v. Wilkerson, 396 S.W.2d 493, 1965 Tex. App. LEXIS 2597 (Tex. Ct. App. 1965).

Opinion

PHILLIPS, Justice.

This is a garnishment action wherein the garnishee, appellant here, has been found to be indebted to the garnishor’s judgment debtor. The garnishor here is the appellee. Garnishor’s judgment debtor had been granted a judgment for $109,-000.00 in a prior suit against the Leander Limestone Corporation, said judgment having been transferred to appellee pursuant to a contract approved by the court in said prior suit. Appellee instituted this garnishment proceeding against the appellant as a debtor of the Leander Limestone Corporation. At the conclusion of the trial to the court, the court entered judgment against appellant for $110,670.36. There were no findings of fact or conclusions of law by the trial court in connection with his judgment.

*497 We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A brief résumé of the facts are as follows: A Texas Corporation named Leander Limestone Corporation was formed in 1946 with five persons equally interested and equally owning the stock. R. K. Allen, appellant here, and Chester Lankford were two of the original incorporators. In 1954, R. K. Allen acquired the stock of the other three incorporators bringing his percentage of the ownership of the capital stock to 80% thereof. Chester Lankford continued to own his capital stock and to remain active in the corporation until his death in 1963. The principal business of Leander Limestone Corporation was the processing of limestone for building purposes.

Another Texas Corporation by the name of Whitestone Lime Company was organized by appellant, R. K. Allen, and Guy E. Green and began doing business in 1956. The majority stockholders of the White-stone Lime Company (and its successor White Stone & Lime Company) were appellant Allen, his wife, son and daughter, and Guy E. Green, his wife, son and daughter.

In 1961 a receivership proceeding was instituted as to the White Stone & Lime Company in the District Court of Williamson County, Texas.

Garnishor appellee is receiver of Cedar Park Quarries, Inc., having been so appointed by the District Court in Austin in a prior proceeding.

In another suit in the District Court in Austin docketed as No. 92,981-B, one Joe Amberson, Jr., Independent Executor of his father’s estate, recovered judgment against Leander Limestone Corporation for the abovementioned sum of $109,000.00. Thereafter, Joe Amberson, Jr. contracted with garnishor appellee to assign this judgment to the garnishor appellee. The receivership judge found that the contract was to the best interest of the receivership (Cedar Park Quarries, Inc.) estate and approved the contract.

In the case at bar, the writ of garnishment was issued in May of 1964 upon a recited judgment for $109,000.00 in the above-mentioned Cause No. 92,981-B. Appellant Allen answered and the case was tried in Williamson County with the result as announced above.

I.

Appellant Allen’s first point of error in this Court is that of the District Court in granting appellee judgment against appellant for $110,670.36 because appellee as garnishor failed to meet the burden of proof resting upon him to establish by a preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case against Leander Limestone Corporation as alleged, and specifically failed to establish a judgment which he was entitled to assert herein or that there was an indebtedness owing by appellant to Leander Limestone Corporation subject to the writ of garnishment, or the amount thereof.

We overrule this point.

The general rule is that, in order to contest a plaintiff’s capacity to sue, objection must be made by a plea in abatement in the trial court and cannot be urged for the first time on appeal. 44 Tex.Jur. 2d, Parties, 223-225. Such rule may in some cases not be applicable to a governmental agency which has only the particular capacities specified in the judicially noticed statute creating such agency. Such appears to have been the view taken in Ortiz Oil Co. v. Railroad Commission, Tex.Civ.App., 62 S.W.2d 376, no writ history, decided in 1933, relied upon by garnishee. But the rule has been squarely held applicable by this Court to suit by a receiver, and it now appears required to be applied by virtue of subdivision (c) of Rule 93, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, adopted in 1940. Roberson v. Board of Insurance Com’rs of Texas, Tex.Civ.App., 171 S.W. *498 2d 542, 543, pt. 1, er. dism., decided in 1943.

Actually, this receiver did not need a specific grant of authority from the 53rd District Court to try to collect the judgment upon which this suit is based. Once the property interest in such judgment was placed in the receiver’s hands, the receiver was authorized by Article 2310, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St., 1 to sue for collection thereof “without leave of the court appointing him.”

Garnishee’s assertion that Amber-son “could not” assign the judgment to the receiver and that the 53rd District Court lacked “jurisdiction” to authorize the receiver to sue thereon is without merit. The contract and court order approving it do not expressly recite that Amber-son was already a party in the receivership case; but such is clearly inferable from the provisions of the fifth paragraph of such contract. But, even if Amberson theretofore had not been a party in the receivership case, he became such when he voluntarily contracted with the receiver subject to the “approval” of the receivership judge. Security Trust Co. of Austin v. Lipscomb County, 142 Tex. 572, 180 S.W.2d 151, 158, col. 2. And thereafter any and all questions relative to the propriety of the receiver’s acquisition of such judgment and of all orders as to what he should do with it could be raised only directly in such receivership case, not by collateral attack such as is now made by the garnishee in this Court. Ibid., 180 S.W.2d at 155-157.

Just as an appointment of a receiver by a court having jurisdiction to appoint and proceedings taken in such receivership are not subject to collateral attack (Robins v. Sandford, Tex.Com.App., 29 S.W.2d 969), so also an order authorizing a receiver to institute suit in the same State is not subject to collateral attack. A case very closely in point is Grant v. H. B. Leach & Co., 280 U.S. 351, 50 S.Ct. 107, 74 L.Ed. 470. In that case a defendant, sued in a federal court by an Ohio state court appointed receiver, challenged the receiver’s authority to sue. The United States Supreme Court held that an Ohio statute practically identical with our Article 2297, V.A.C.S., gave the Ohio state court “jurisdiction” to determine actions its receiver might bring; and it then held:

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Bluebook (online)
396 S.W.2d 493, 1965 Tex. App. LEXIS 2597, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allen-v-wilkerson-texapp-1965.