City National Bank v. Phillips Petroleum Co.

78 S.W.2d 576, 124 Tex. 456, 1935 Tex. LEXIS 245
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 23, 1935
DocketNo. 6243
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 78 S.W.2d 576 (City National Bank v. Phillips Petroleum Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City National Bank v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 78 S.W.2d 576, 124 Tex. 456, 1935 Tex. LEXIS 245 (Tex. 1935).

Opinion

Mr. Judge SMEDLEY

delivered the opinion of the Commission of Appeals, Section B.

[457]*457Defendant in error recovered judgment against plaintiff in error for $669.35, being the total amount of several checks payable to defendant in error drawn by Michie Motor Company on plaintiff in error’s bank in payment for petroleum products purchased by said company from defendant in error. It is alleged that defendant in error’s agent, who sold the petroleum products, and to whom the checks were delivered, indorsed and cashed the checks, without authority, at plaintiff in error’s bank, and retained the proceeds, and that plaintiff in error by reason of having so paid the checks upon the unauthorized indorsement became liable to defendant in error for the amount of same.

The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court (47 S. W. (2d) 357), the gist of its decision being that an agent who is authorized to accept a check in payment of a demand due to his principal and who takes such check payable to his principal has no implied authority to indorse it and collect the money thereon, and that a bank paying the check so indorsed is liable to the principal.

Since the amount in controversy is within the jurisdiction of the county court, the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals is final and the Supreme Court is without jurisdiction, unless the case is one in which the Court of Civil Appeals held differently from a prior decision of its own, or of another Court of Civil Appeals, or of the Supreme Court upon a question of law. Articles 1728, 1821, Revised Statutes of 1925, as amended in 1927 and 1929. (There is no contention that the case is within any of the other exceptions to the rule that judgments of the Courts of Civil Appeals are final in county court cases.) Plaintiff in error in its application for writ of error specifies and cites as grounds of jurisdiction twelve decisions with which it alleges that the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals herein is in conflict. After carefully examining all of these decisions, we find that there is between none of them and the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals such conflict as will authorize this court to take jurisdiction. The rule as to what constitutes a conflict of decisions under Article 1728 has been stated so often that it need not be repeated here. See: Garrity v. Ramsey, 112 Hexas, 369, 374, 247 S. W., 825, 827; Sun Mutual Ins. Co. v. Roberts, Willis & Taylor, 90 Texas, 78, 79, 37 S. W., 311, 312; Layton v. Hightower, 118 Texas, 166, 12 S. W. (2d) 110; Jones v. Hickman, 121 Texas, 405, 48 S. W. (2d) 982; Harris v. Willson (Com. App.), 59 S. W. (2d) 106; Mooers v. Hunter (Com. App.), 67 S. W. (2d) 860.

In none of the several decisions cited in the application for [458]*458writ of error are the facts invoked in the ruling materially the same as the facts in this case. In none of them is there a ruling on the question whether an agent who is authorized, either as a general agent or as a special agent, to accept checks payable to his principal for demands due the principal has implied authority to indorse and cash such checks; and in none of them is there a ruling on the question of the bank’s liability to the principal for cashing checks on the agent’s unauthorized indorsement. The several decisions but announce the well known rules with reference to implied authority and apparent authority, and apply such rules to the facts of the particular case.

The application for writ of error filed herein was “granted on the second assignment,” which raises a question of substantive law, that is, the correctness of the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals that the agent had no implied authority to indorse and cash the checks. That question this court cannot determine unless it has jurisdiction of the case on account of conflict.

At the time of the oral argument it was suggested that the decision of the Court of Civil Appeals herein is in conflict with Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland v. Fort Worth National Bank (Com. App.), 65 S. W. (2d) 276, holding that neither the' payee of a check or its assignee can maintain an action against the drawee bank on account of the bank’s payment of the check upon a forged or unauthorized indorsement. That case had not been decided by the Supreme Court when the instant case was decided by the Court of Civil Appeals, and is therefore not “a prior decision,” but the same case decided by the Court of Civil Appeals in the same way on the particular question (48 S. W. (2d) 694) is a prior decision to that of the Court of Civil Appeals in the instant case, as is also Lone Star Trucking Company v. City National Bank of Commerce, 240 S. W., 1000, a similar decision on the same question, cited and approved in the opinion of Judge Critz in Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland v. Fort Worth National Bank, supra.

While the Cotirt of Civil Appeals merely assumed without discussing the question that the payee could recover from the bank on account of the payment of the check upon the unauthorized indorsement, its affirmance of the judgment against the bank is in conflict with the decision made in Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland v. Fort Worth National Bank, and in Lone Star Trucking Company v. City National Bank of Commerce, supra.

Plaintiff in error insists that the court has jurisdiction of [459]*459the case and should decide it because there in fact existed at the time the case was decided by the Court of Civil Appeals an actual conflict between its holding and that made in the two cases last above cited, although no reference whatever was made in the application for writ of error to either of said cases, or to any other case deciding the same question. Must the conflict essential to jurisdiction be made to appear in the application for writ of error, or should the court, after improvidently granting a writ of error upon an application not showing jurisdiction, retain the case and decide it, if at any time before the decision it is discovered, through accident, on account of new zeal of counsel, or by the court, that there is a prior conflicting decision? It is our opinion that the conflict must clearly and affirmatively appear in the application for writ of error, and that if it does not so appear the application should be dismissed, even though the actual existence of a conflict is discovered after the writ has been granted.

The application for writ of error is the basis for the exercising of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It invokes the jurisdiction. Since such is its province, it should plainly show in one of its first sections that the case is one of which the court has jurisdiction. The general rule is that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over county court cases, jurisdiction on account of conflict being given by way of exception. One seeking the benefit of the exception should in his application bring himself clearly within it.

There are eleven Courts of Civil Appeals. They have decided thousands of cases. It is impossible for the members of the Supreme Court and those who assist them to be so familiar with the decisions of the Courts of Civil Appeals as to know whether or not there has ever been any decision by any of those courts in conflict with the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals under review upon consideration of an application for writ of error. They must necessarily determine the existence of conflict, and consequently the question of jurisdiction, from the decisions specifically presented in the application.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
78 S.W.2d 576, 124 Tex. 456, 1935 Tex. LEXIS 245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-national-bank-v-phillips-petroleum-co-tex-1935.