McCay v. Brown

483 S.W.2d 705, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2476
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 6, 1972
DocketNo. 5124
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 483 S.W.2d 705 (McCay v. Brown) 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
McCay v. Brown, 483 S.W.2d 705, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2476 (Tex. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

OPINION

JAMES, Justice.

This is a consolidated cause which originated in two separate suits, each of which were filed in the 15th District Court of Grayson County, Texas. W. A. McCay filed the first suit December 14, 1970, being against his stepson Windle Ray Brown and his wife (at that time) Betty Brown, for a money judgment in the amount of $30,500.00 together with attorney’s fees and costs, and foreclosure of a-chattel mortgage on certain fixtures, equip[707]*707ment, and leasehold interest on the “Discotheque Club”, a night club. This suit is hereinafter called “the McCay suit”. McCay alleged that Brown had executed a $25,000.00 note to him (McCay) in return for moneys McCay had loaned him, secured by the chattel mortgage (also executed by Brown); and in addition thereto, McCay had loaned Brown an additional $5,500.00 which was unsecured. Brown and his wife had owned and operated the Club, and McCay contends that this money was loaned to the Browns primarily to help them pay the Club’s bills and debts.

Brown filed a confession of judgment in the cause; however, Mrs. Brown filed an answer in which she specially denied owing McCay any money and denying that Mc-Cay had any type of mortgage or lien on the Club’s assets, and also pleaded fraud between McCay and Brown (against herself) regarding the note and chattel mortgage asserted by McCay. Mrs. Brown had sued her husband for divorce the same day McCay filed the above-mentioned suit against the Browns.

The Browns separated in August, 1970, at which time McCay contends Brown came to him and turned the Club over to him (McCay) saying, “I can’t pay the debts, take it, do what you want to with it, I don’t want it anymore.”

McCay operated the Club until December 31, 1970, when he and Brown together closed a deal in a lawyer’s office selling the Club and all its assets to one Hembree for $30,000.00. Hembree paid $12,000.00 in cash money, and the contract of sale recited that the remaining $18,000.00 was evidenced by a note in said amount bearing 5% interest payable $500.00 per month of principal and interest. McCay and his wife signed the contract as sellers and Hembree as purchaser; however, the $12,000.00 cash was paid to Brown. Brown told Hembree that he (Brown) couldn’t have anything in his name on account of the trouble he was having with his wife, and that was the reason why “McCay was taking care of the deal for him”. Appellee Fritts had put up $6,000.00 of the $12,000.00 cash down payment, and Fritts and Hembree had an understanding between themselves that they would be fifty-fifty partners in the Club. However, a few months later, in August, 1971, Hem-bree assigned all his interest in the Club to Fritts, who closed the Club a few days before trial.

Meanwhile on February 3, 1971, a judgment of divorce was entered by the 15th District Court of Grayson County, Texas, between Brown and his wife in which Mrs. Brown was awarded, among other things, a one-half net community interest in the Discotheque Club.

Then on March 16, 1971, Betty Brown filed a separate suit against McCay and his wife Dixie McCay, Hembree and Fritts, asserting her undivided one-half interest in the Club, that the Club was the business homestead of herself and her former husband Windle Ray Brown, and further alleging that the purported sale of the Club to Hembree and Fritts was without her knowledge or consent and in fraud of her rights. She prayed for cancellation of the sale, and for exemplary damages; and in the alternative, that should the sale of the Club be held valid that she recover one-half of all the purchase money theretofore paid or hereafter to be paid by Hembree and Fritts. This suit is hereinafter called “the Brown suit”.

Fritts filed a third party action in the Brown suit against Betty Brown and the McCays, alleging in effect that he (Fritts) and Hembree had purchased the Club in good faith from Mr. and Mrs. McCay, believing the McCays to be the owners thereof, and pursuant thereto he and Hembree had paid the McCays $15,750.00 on the purchase price of the Club, and that Hem-bree has assigned all his interest in the Club to him, Fritts. He sues to have his title in the Club quieted; or in the alterna[708]*708tive, in the event Betty Brown is successful, that he recover his $15,750.00 purchase money from the McCays.

The trial court consolidated the McCay suit with the Brown suit, over the objection of Appellants McCays.

Trial was had to a jury, which found:

(1) That the Club was the business homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Brown;

(2) That McCay and Brown acted together in the making of the $25,000.00 note and mortgage to commit a fraud on Betty Brown;

(3) That prior to receiving the $12,000.-00 cash and the $18,000.00 note from Hem-bree, McCay acting through Brown represented to Hembree that McCay was the owner of all the assets of the Club;

(4) That such representation was false;

(5) That Hembree relied upon such representation ; and

(6) That Hembree had a right to rely on such representation.

Pursuant to the jury verdict, the trial court entered judgment: setting aside as fraudulent the sale by the McCays of the Club to Hembree; awarding title and possession of the Club to Betty Brown; declaring the Club to be the business homestead of the Browns until their divorce (on February 3, 1971); granting Fritts a judgment against the McCays for $15,750.00 and interest; granting the McCays a “take nothing” judgment against the Browns; and adjudicating the costs.

Appellants, the McCays, filed a Motion for Judgment notwithstanding the verdict prior to entry of the trial court’s judgment, which was overruled. Appellants did not file a motion for new trial, and now assert that the trial court erred on nine points of error as follows:

(1)In refusing to give the McCay suit a prior setting ahead of the Brown suit;

(2) In consolidating the McCay suit with the Brown suit;

(3) In the trial court’s refusal to disqualify himself in the controversy (on the ground that the judge was biased in favor of Mrs. Brown as a result of the Brown divorce suit);

(4) In failing to render judgment for the McCays as a matter of law;

(5) In permitting Fritts to enter the case as a third-party plaintiff;

(6) In overruling eleven special exceptions filed by the McCays;

(7) In overruling McCay’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict;

(8) In rendering a “conflicting and irreconcilable and incompatible judgment in two causes at the same time”; and

(8A) In submitting Special Issue No. 2 to the jury.

Since Appellants did not file a motion for new trial, we are without jurisdiction to consider any of Appellants’ points except four and seven, these latter two points dealing with the trial court’s overruling of Appellants’ motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. There being no fundamental error apparent in the record all other points are waived by Appellants under the provisions of Rules 320, 321, 322, 324, 325, and 374, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Wagner v. Foster (1960) 161 Tex. 333, 341 S.W.2d 887; Miller v. Miller (San Antonio CA 1954) 274 S.W.2d 762, error refused. Appellants’ points 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 8A are therefore overruled.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
483 S.W.2d 705, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2476, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccay-v-brown-texapp-1972.