Fuller ex rel. Rucker v. Middleton

453 S.W.2d 372, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2544
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 3, 1970
DocketNo. 17106
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 453 S.W.2d 372 (Fuller ex rel. Rucker v. Middleton) 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
Fuller ex rel. Rucker v. Middleton, 453 S.W.2d 372, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2544 (Tex. Ct. App. 1970).

Opinion

OPINION

MASSEY, Chief Justice.

A take-nothing judgment was rendered upon the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment in Cause No. 56,240-C, and the plaintiff appealed. Plaintiff was Mrs. E. D. Fuller, as next friend of Elsie R. Ruck-er. Defendant was H. L. Middleton.

Background of the case included a prior judgment in Cause No. 52,430-C, in the same trial court, rendered July 17, 1968. Plaintiff in that case was Mrs. J. W. [374]*374Rucker, a widow. She is the same person as Elsie R. Rucker in the instant case, for whom Mrs. E. D. Fuller sued as next friend. Cause No. 56,240-C was filed on , April 7, 1969.

Cause No. 52,430-C was a suit for an injunction against persons whom we may treat as identical to the defendant in the instant action. Said suit was to enjoin the sale of certain real estate. Such real estate was that of Mrs. Rucker, which at time of such suit had been advertised for sale by a trustee under authority of her Deed of Trust. An allegation in her pleading read, as follows: “Plaintiff says that the aforesaid note and deed of trust, and particularly the inclusion of her homestead therein, were induced by the fraud of defendants, were without sufficient consideration, and that plaintiff was, on April 5, 1967 (when the instruments were executed), incompetent to execute any valid or binding legal obligation and incapable of entering into the transactions hereinbefore described. * * *”

The defendants filed a cross-action in 52,430-C. The cross-action was their suit in Trespass to Try Title to real estate. The real estate was the same as that described in Mrs. Rucker’s Deed of Trust. That case came on for trial on July 11, 1968. Mrs. Rucker, the plaintiff, appeared by attorney, hut failed to appear in person. Her attorney filed a Motion for Continuance, which was by the court overruled. When this occurred her attorney took a non-suit as applied to the action filed in her behalf. The defendants demanded trial on their cross-action. A jury being waived the court proceeded to try the defendants’ action in Trespass to Try Title, with attorney for Mrs. Rucker participating. Following such trial judgment was rendered in behalf of the defendants on their cross-action (as cross-plaintiffs) granting them title to realty which was described in their pleadings and in the judgment (as opposed to Mrs. Rucker). A Motion for New Trial was filed on her behalf but no appeal was perfected and the trial court’s judgment became final.

As of the time 52,430-C was called for trial and Plaintiff’s Motion for Continuance was filed, no service of process had ever been had on the defendants’ cross-action which presented their Trespass to Try Title action against Mrs. Rucker. Mrs. Rucker took her non-suit upon the court’s refusal of her Motion for Continuance. In such situation, it is held, all parties, and issues made by existing pleadings, are before the court and the court is vested with jurisdiction to proceed and render final judgment upon the case made by the cross-action. Evans v. McNeill, 41 S.W.2d 268 (Austin Tex.Civ.App., 1931, writ dismissed). Under such circumstances a plaintiff who took the non-suit cannot say in a suit thereafter brought that he (or she) did not know of the cross-action and issues made thereby. There is no necessity for service of citation upon a cross-action when the defendant in cross-action thereafter makes an appearance in the case.

Under the circumstances existent at time of the trial of 52,430-C issues made and presented and decided thereby— and every other matter which the parties might have litigated therein and might have had decided by the court — must be held conclusive upon the rights of the parties, should the same issue (or one which might have been therein litigated) be presented in a subsequent suit. Such principle of law has application to a Trespass to Try Title case save in instances where exceptions are shown existent. Trigg v. Whittenburg, 129 S.W.2d 472 (Amarillo Tex.Civ.App., 1939, error refused) and cases cited, especially Freeman v. McAninch, 87 Tex. 132, 27 S.W. 97, 47 Am.St.Rep. 79 (1894). No such exception exists in the instant case. It is inferred, if not expressly held in First Baptist Church of Ft. Worth v. Baptist Bible Sem., 162 Tex. 441, 347 S.W.2d 587, 592 (1961) that a person in the position of Mrs. Rucker could have had her equitable right tried in the Tres[375]*375pass to Try Title case if she had filed pleadings raising it. 56 Tex.Jur.2d p. 210, “Trespass to Try Title”, Sec. 95, “Answer seeking affirmative relief”; p. 233, Sec. 113, “ — Effect of special plea on defensive matters”; Ayres v. Duprey, 27 Tex. 593 (1864); and 41A Tex.Jur., p. 630, “Trespass to Try Title”, Sec. 103, “Necessity for Special Plea.”

Mrs. Rucker, through her next friend on the instant appeal (from 56,240-C) contends that her suit as originally filed in 52,430-C could not have been litigated along with and at the same time as the cross-plaintiffs’ action in Trespass to Try Title. She cited cases as authority. We cannot agree with plaintiff upon the applicability of Neill v. Pure Oil Co., 101 S.W. 2d 402 (Dallas Tex.Civ.App., 1937, error refused) and Harrison v. Craddock, 178 S. W.2d 296 (Galveston Tex.Civ.App., 1944, no writ history). The holding upon which plaintiff relies, as made in the cited cases, is that an insane grantor or his heir would not have the remedy to recover the land by a suit in Trespass to Try Title to real estate, but must first (in a prior action) avoid the deed of the insane person by an action to rescind it, at least where the entire title is conveyed. These cases do not hold that when he who was the insane grantor, or his heir, etc., is sued by the grantee of such deed, etc. in an action brought by the latter in Trespass to Try Title there is any want of authority for the former to either defend on the ground of voidability of the deed or to assert in the same suit the entitlement to rescind and have the deed set aside because of the want of mental competency. The cases are not authority that there was any want of jurisdiction in the trial court under 52,-430-C to litigate the cause of action therein originally brought by Mrs. Rucker (but as to which she took a non-suit) merely because the defendants filed and prosecuted their cross-action in Trespass to Try Title under the same numbered cause.

In view of what we have stated, we hold that judgment in 52,430-C is res ad-judicata, of the title to the property in question as between the defendants and Mrs. Rucker, subject to direct attack made by subsequent suit.

In the instant case, No. 56,240-C, the plaintiff, Mrs. E. D. Fuller, as next friend of Elsie R. Rucker, necessarily took the position that there was voidability in the judgment in 52,430-C, and that the second suit was one directly attacking the same. The ground of attack was the allegation of mental incompetency of Mrs. Rucker at all material times, beginning prior to date the Deed of Trust was executed and continuing until the date such suit was filed, April 7, 1969.

The pleadings in 56,240-C did not attempt to comply with the requisites made in instances of Bills of Review. See Johnson v. Potter, 384 S.W.2d 747 (Tyler Tex.Civ.App., 1964, no writ history).

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453 S.W.2d 372, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2544, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fuller-ex-rel-rucker-v-middleton-texapp-1970.