Benjamin State Bank v. Reed

139 S.W.2d 172, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 217
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 15, 1940
DocketNo. 1968.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 139 S.W.2d 172 (Benjamin State Bank v. Reed) 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
Benjamin State Bank v. Reed, 139 S.W.2d 172, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 217 (Tex. Ct. App. 1940).

Opinion

FUNDERBURK, Justice.

On March 27, 1936, Mrs. Mattie Reed, a feme sole, filed this suit against the Benjamin State Bank. By her first amended original petition, filed May 8, 1936, Z. Gos-sett, Banking Commissioner of Texas, was made a party defendant along with the original defendant, the reason therefor appearing from the allegation that “on or about the - day of April 1936, the said defendant The Benjamin State Bank closed its doors and said defendant bank and all of its assets and claimed assets were taken over * * by Z. Gossett, Commissioner of Banking”, etc.

The first part of plaintiff’s first amended original petition consisted of the usual allegations in a statutory action of trespass to try title. Then followed in purportedly an “alternative count”, but in which all previous allegations were adopted as a part of such (so-called) “alternative count”, the averment of a cause of action to remove clouds from plaintiff’s title to the land in question; the clouds consisting of a deed of trust purportedly executed by plaintiff and her since deceased husband on or about February 20, 1929, and a trustee’s deed to said bank executed under the power purportedly granted in said deed of trust. Said instruments were sought to be avoided upon a number of grounds, including the mental incapacity of plaintiff to execute the deed of trust, which mental incapacity was alleged to have continued until about three years before the filing of the suit, during all of which time up to May 1, 1933, she was in possession of .said land.

The case was submitted to a jury upon special issues. Upon the verdict of the jury judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, from which the defendants have appealed.

The parties will be referred to as “plaintiff” and “defendants”, the same as in the trial court. This is the second appeal of this case. Reed v. Benjamin State Bank, Tex.Civ.App., 114 S.W.2d 365. Upon the former appeal it seems there was no question presented regarding the sufficiency of the pleadings. Defendants now contend that the court erred in overruling their general demurrer to plaintiff’s petition. It is insisted that the petition was insufficient because of the omission of any allegation to the effect that prior to the filing of the suit the claim in' suit had been presented to the Banking Commissioner.

The plaintiff apparently attempted to fortify her petition against the general demurrer by a pleading entitled “Plaintiff’s First Supplemental Petition.” This pleading alleged no fact in the nature of an admission that at the time the suit was filed the assets had been taken over by the Banking Commissioner. We regard this pleading as tendering no issues which require further notice. 'If plaintiff’s petition was subject to the general demurrer as urged, then it received no aid from the allegations in the supplemental pleading. In First Nat. Bank of Knox City v. Boyd, Tex.Civ.App., 75 S.W.2d 928, 929, we cited a long list of authorities upon which we reached the conclusion, applicable here, that: “It is a basic principle of our system of pleading that a supplemental pleading cannot be made to supply such deficiencies in an original or amended pleading as are reached by general or special exceptions.”

In our opinion, the omission from the pleading of such allegation did not render the pleading subject to general demurrer. The suit was at first brought against the Benjamin State Bank as sole defendant. According to the allegations in the pleading, the sufficiency of which is here challenged, the suit was- filed on March 27, 1936, and the bank was closed, and possession of its assets taken over sometime in April thereafterwards. According to such allegations the suit was pending when the Banking Commissioner took possession of the assets of the bank. If so, the plaintiff was under no obligation to present the claim involved in the suit to the Banking Commissioner, even if such claim was one otherwise required to be so presented.

*175 If at the time the suit was filed the assets of the bank, contrary to the allegations of the pleading, had in fact already been taken into the possession of the Banking Commissioner, the failure of plaintiff’s petition to show such fact, even if the claim in suit was one required to be presented as a condition precedent to the right to maintain the suit, would not render the pleading subject to a general demurrer. If it was a fact, and the fact had appeared from plaintiff’s pleading that at the time the suit was filed the assets of the bank had been taken over by the Banking Commissioner, then it would be necessary for us to determine whether the claim was •one required to be presented. Clearly we think that question is not presented by the action of the court in overruling a general demurrer. It was necessary for the defendants, by plea in abatement, or affirmative defense in bar, to present such question. The allegations in plaintiff’s petition were entirely consistent with the proposition declared in L. G. Balfour Co. v. Z. Gossett, 131 Tex. 348, 115 S.W.2d 594, 598, that the requirement for presentation of claims of the character which defendants contend this is one, has “no application to a case * * * where a bank, while a going concern, was sued on a claim against it, and thereafter, while such suit was pending, the bank failed and was taken in charge by the banking commissioner.”

In our opinion, if it be granted, provisionally, that the suit involves the subject matter of a claim which, under some circumstances, would be required to be presented to the Banking Commissioner before suit, the evidence did not conclusively establish the existence of such circumstances. Hence, the court did not err in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendants upon that ground.

If there was evidence raising such an issue, the issue was an element of an independent ground of defense which, not being submitted by the court, nor requested by-the defendant (so far as the record discloses), must be held to have been waived by the defendants.

The defendants requested a special issue stated thus:

“Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that it was the intention of the parties, Mrs. Mattie Reed and her husband, W. H. Reed, that the proceeds of the plaintiff’s lands inherited from her parents, then in hand, should constitute and be their community property for the purpose of purchasing the lands in controversy? You will answer this issue ‘yes’ or ‘no’ accordingly as you find the facts to be.
“In connection with the foregoing issue you are instructed that by the term ‘community property’ as therein used is meant the common property of the husband and wife and not the separate property of either.”

It is our conclusion there was no error in the action, of the court in refusing to submit such requested special- issue. The question presented is in effect the same as that decided upon the former appeal. There the question was.whether land purchased with the separate property of the wife could by intention of the husband and wife be changed to community property; while the question here is whether money

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Bluebook (online)
139 S.W.2d 172, 1940 Tex. App. LEXIS 217, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benjamin-state-bank-v-reed-texapp-1940.