Netherland v. Wittner

624 S.W.2d 685, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4179
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 22, 1981
DocketB2765
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 624 S.W.2d 685 (Netherland v. Wittner) 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
Netherland v. Wittner, 624 S.W.2d 685, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4179 (Tex. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

ROBERTSON, Justice.

Defendant appeals from the granting of plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. We reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand.

In 1970, Freddie Cooper Lovejoy, now deceased, executed a promissory note payable to B. E. Netherland or order. The note states that the sum of four thousand dollars ($4,000) with interest at 7½% is payable in monthly installments of fifty dollars ($50.00) and that the interest is “included in the fifty dollars ($50.00) monthly payment.” The deed of trust securing payment of the *686 note calls for “four thousand dollars ($4,000.00) at 7½% interest payable in monthly installments of fifty dollars ($50.00) including interest.”

Subsequent to the death of Freddie Cooper Lovejoy, Van E. Wittner, as successor administrator of Lovejoy’s estate, made payments to Allied Bank of Texas and received from them a record of those payments up to August 19, 1977 when the four thousand dollars ($4,000.00) balance was allegedly paid in full.

Following requests of defendant Nether-land to release his vendor’s lien and his refusal to do so, Wittner filed suit to remove the cloud from title to the real estate involved and to require defendant to execute a release of lien. Defendant answered and filed his own petition, alleging the note was not fully satisfied by payment of four thousand dollars ($4,000.00).

Plaintiff filed his motion for summary judgment with supporting documents and defendant answered that the motion did not “state sufficient allegations” upon which a summary judgment could be rendered and that a “question of law” was involved as to whether the promissory note was paid in full.

The trial court entered judgment granting plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and denying defendant’s motion in opposition and objection to the affidavit on plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. 1 Defendant appeals.

The question before us is a basic one: whether appellee’s summary judgment proof shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

It is clear that the burden of proof in a summary judgment proceeding is on the movant. The non-movant need not answer; but if he does, he must expressly present any fact issue which he later intends to rely on for appeal. City of Houston v. Clear Creek Basin Authority, 589 S.W.2d 671 (Tex.1979).

In meeting this burden, the movant must attach to his motion that which he offers as proof of his right to a judgment as a matter of law. Such proof may consist of depositions, admissions, answers to interrogatories, affidavits, supporting documents, and, in some circumstances, pleadings.

In the case before us, appellee attached to his motion for summary judgment his own affidavit and the unsworn answers to interrogatories of Peggy Nulph, supervisor of collections of the Allied Bank of Texas. Included as part of the interrogatories are certified copies of a bank record, the promissory note, two letters, a standard bank form, and a record of payments by Freddie Cooper Lovejoy.

In his first point of error, appellant contends that the pleadings are legally insufficient because the terms of the note and payments made under them are not pled and neither the original note nor a verified copy thereof is attached to the pleadings or the motion for summary judgment. Appellants rely on Barney v. Credit Plan Corp., 403 S.W.2d 230 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1966, no writ). However, the summary judgment in that case is based entirely on the pleadings. More to our purposes here is the reasoning in Boswell v. Handley, 397 S.W.2d 213 (Tex.1965) which is cited in Barney. The Boswell court affirmed a Court of Civil Appeals reversal of a motion for summary judgment where an uncertified and unverified.copy of a will was attached only to pleadings, and references to the purported will in pleadings of the respondents did not constitute judicial admissions. Here, however, appellant not only referred to the promissory note in question, he clearly pled its terms and attached copies of it and the deed of trust to his own petition. It is, in fact, the basis of his claim. Appellant’s first point of error is overruled.

Points of error two, three, four, and five are all directed at the summary judgment *687 evidence offered by appellee. As noted above, the proffered evidence consisted of appellee’s affidavit and the interrogatories of Peggy Nulph of Allied Bank. The latter includes letters and bank records.

Tex.R.Civ.P. 168(2) sets out the uses of interrogatories to parties and says that answers “may be used only against the party answering the interrogatories.” United Services Automobile Ass’n v. Ratterree, 512 S.W.2d 30 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1974, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Stone v. Lawyers Title Ins. Corp., 537 S.W.2d 55 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1976), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 554 S.W.2d 183 (Tex.1977). In the case before us, Ms. Nulph is not a party to this suit, nor are her answers being used against her. Thus, even though her answers are not made under oath as required by Tex.R.Civ.P. 168(5) as appellant complains, and even though appellant did not “expressly present” such issue to the trial court during the hearing on appellee’s motion for summary judgment as required by Tex.R.Civ.P. 166-A(c) and City of Houston, supra, we find her answers inadmissible as against appellant. Without her answers to interrogatories, the bank records purportedly showing final payment on the note are never authenticated.

The sole basis for appellee’s motion for summary judgment then is his own affidavit. While there may have been some objections to the affidavit as evidenced by a recital in the judgment that such motion objecting to the affidavit is denied, no such objection is in the record before us.

In appellee’s affidavit, he states that he has

personally reviewed the records of Allied Texas Bank relative to the issues as to execution and payment of such Promissory Note having reviewed same in person and I am competent to testify to the matters stated in the pleadings on file herein. That as the Successor Administrator of the said Estate I made the last payment due on such Promissory Note on or about August 19, 1977 and that subsequent to such date neither the Allied Bank of Texas nor the Defendant, B. E. Netherland, contacted me demanding that additional sums were due on said Promissory Note as alleged by the said Defendant. That the records of Allied Bank of Texas, which I personally discussed with Ms.

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Bluebook (online)
624 S.W.2d 685, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4179, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/netherland-v-wittner-texapp-1981.