Clark's Texas, Inc. v. Stewart

466 S.W.2d 354, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2651
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 15, 1971
Docket5004
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 466 S.W.2d 354 (Clark's Texas, Inc. v. Stewart) 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
Clark's Texas, Inc. v. Stewart, 466 S.W.2d 354, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2651 (Tex. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

OPINION

HALL, Justice.

Appellee, Mary Stewart, brought this action to enjoin an asserted violation of Article 286a, Vernon’s Annotated Texas Penal Code. There are two individual defendants : Robert Ward and Charles Frum; and there are six corporate defendants: Clark’s Texas, Inc., Cook United of Texas, *356 Inc., Sundaco, Inc., Clark’s Arlington, Inc., Cook United, Inc., and M. N. Landau Stores, Inc. It is alleged in plaintiff’s petition that the last two defendants named are doing business as “Cook’s Discount Department Store” and “Cook’s Department Store.”

The trial court granted a restraining order, and, after hearing, granted the temporary injunction sought by plaintiff. Hence this appeal by all of the defendants.

In the beginning we are called upon to decide appellee’s motion to dismiss the appeal as to some, or all, of the appellants. She seeks dismissal as to three of the corporate appellants because of their failure to give notice of appeal from the order' of temporary injunction.

Rule 385, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, prescribes the procedure for taking an appeal from an interlocutory order, and notice of appeal is not required. Crow v. Batchelor, (Tex.Sup., 1970) 453 S.W.2d 297, 298.

The order granting the temporary injunction was rendered on December 5, 1970. On December 10, 1970, all of the appellants in this case jointly filed a motion to dissolve the injunction. The motion to dissolve was heard on December 11th and overruled on December 16th. Appellee asks that the appeal be dismissed as to all appellants, contending that they have “elected to proceed by motion to dissolve injunction, which is a separate remedy, inconsistent with an appeal from the order granting temporary injunction” and that, having made an election, “they are bound thereby.”

There is authority for the principle that “where an appeal is taken from an order overruling a motion to dissolve a temporary injunction it constitutes an election to waive the right to appeal from the order granting the injunction, and vice versa.” See Plateau Oil Co. v. Choate Oil Corporation, (Tex.Civ.App., 1921, writ dism.) 235 S.W. 686; Lowe and Archer, 6 Texas Practice 387-8, Injunctions And Other Extraordinary Proceedings, Sec. 363, and cases cited therein. Nevertheless, we do not believe that rule has application, here. The only matters in the record relating to the motion to dissolve are contained in a supplemental transcript filed by the appellants. It does not contain an appeal bond or supersedeas bond, relating to the motion, as required by Rule 385. Therefore, appellants have failed to perfect an appeal from the order overruling the motion to dissojve injunction; and, though they base two points of error on the order, they cannot be heard to complain about it. We agree with appellants that the purpose of the general rule prohibiting an appeal from both an order of temporary injunction and an order overruling a motion to dissolve the injunction is not to deny a litigant his right of review, but, rather, is to prevent a review of the same matter twice.

Appellee’s motion to dismiss is overruled.

Appellants have four points of error devoted to the proposition that the injunction should be set aside insofar as it relates to appellants Sundaco', Inc., M. N. Landau Stores, Inc., and Cook United, Inc., because they were not served with citation or other sufficient notice of the hearing on the temporary injunction, and were not, therefore, properly before the court.

If this contention was arguable when the trial began, (which, under the record, we doubt) it became moot with the filing of the motion to dissolve injunction. That motion recites that it is filed by “all of the defendants” in the case, and is signed by the attorney who now insists that Sundaco, Inc., M. N. Landau Stores, Inc., and Cook United, Inc., were not properly before the court. We overrule that contention. Insofar as the record shows, the motion was filed while the temporary injunction was still pending in the trial court. If, as they claim, these appellants had not been served with notice, *357 then their joinder with the other defendants in filing the motion to dissolve injunction at a time when the matter was still before the court constituted a general appearance by them in the case; gave them notice of the injunction; and rendered them amenable to its provisions if it is otherwise valid.

Article 286a of the Penal Code provides in part that it is unlawful and a public nuisance (with certain exceptions) for any individual, partnership, or corporation to sell or offer for sale, or compel or force or oblige their employees to sell, certain named items of merchandise “on both the two (2) consecutive days of Saturday and Sunday.” The article authorizes any person to apply to any court of competent jurisdiction for and obtain an injunction restraining a violation of its provisions.

In her petition for injunction, appellee alleged that the defendants “are not separate entities in truth and in fact, but have been made to appear as such for purposes of circumventing the laws of the State of Texas;” that the defendants “separately and in active concert with each other,” violated article 286a in the manner particularized in her pleading; that the violations did not fall within any exceptions to the article; and that the defendants are “scheming and conspiring together” to continue violating article 286a.

In the order granting the temporary injunction, the court found that “the conduct of defendants is such that the separate corporate entities of the corporate defendants have not been respected and maintained; that all of said defendants are under common control and that each defendant has and is acting in concert each with the other” in “knowing violation” of article 286a; and that the corporate defendants have been and are doing business as Cook’s Discount Department Store. By several points of error, the defendants contend there is no evidence to support these findings. We overrule these contentions.

There is probative evidence in the record that M. N. Landau Stores, Inc., owns Clark’s Arlington, Inc., Clark’s Texas, Inc., and Cook United of Texas, Inc.; or that M. N. Landau Stores, Inc., and Cook United, Inc., own Clark’s Texas, Inc., and Clark’s Arlington, Inc.; that the home offices of M. N. Landau Stores, Inc., and Cook United, Inc., are in Cleveland, Ohio; that an officer and director of M. N.

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Related

Clark's-Gamble, Inc. v. State
486 S.W.2d 840 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1972)

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Bluebook (online)
466 S.W.2d 354, 1971 Tex. App. LEXIS 2651, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clarks-texas-inc-v-stewart-texapp-1971.