Peoples Savings & Loan Ass'n of Llano v. Community Savings & Loan Ass'n

430 S.W.2d 708, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2456
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 17, 1968
DocketNo. 11622
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 430 S.W.2d 708 (Peoples Savings & Loan Ass'n of Llano v. Community Savings & Loan Ass'n) 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
Peoples Savings & Loan Ass'n of Llano v. Community Savings & Loan Ass'n, 430 S.W.2d 708, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2456 (Tex. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

O’QUINN, Justice.

This case had its origin in an appeal to district court by Community Savings and Loan Association of Fredericksburg from an order of the Savings and Loan Commissioner of Texas denying its application for a branch office in Llano.

A competing application for charter to operate a savings and loan association in Llano, made by H. L. Buttery and others, had been considered also by the Commissioner and had been denied in a separate order on the same date Community’s application for a branch office was refused. Buttery and associates proposed to call their organization Peoples Savings and Loan Association of Llano.

The Buttery group also appealed from the Commissioner’s order refusing the charter, and the two appeals were before the district court at the same time. Buttery moved to consolidate the cases. The district court refused upon objection by Community to consolidate the two appeals, but did consolidate the cases for “trial purposes only.” Separate hearings were conducted, separate docket notations were made, and separate statements of facts were maintained in each cause. The trial court on May 9, 1967, rendered two separate judgments, each of which overruled the Commissioner and granted the respective applications.

Buttery and associates, who had intervened in the Community case, filed motion for new trial in the Community case. They complained that the trial court erred in not consolidating the two cases. Community and the Commissioner filed a motion “to set hearing” on the motion for new trial and joined in the Buttery prayer for new trial in Community’s case. In addition, Community in the same motion asked for a new trial in the Buttery case. Neither Community nor Buttery filed motion for new trial in the separate case of Buttery and associates.

On June 19, 1967, more than thirty days after the judgments entered in May, the trial court granted new trials in both the Community case and the Buttery case. Buttery and associates obtained a writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court directing the trial court to vacate the order granting a new trial in the Buttery case. Judgment in the Buttery case had become final thirty days after entry, and motion for new trial in the Community case was unavailing as a motion for new trial in the Buttery suit. Buttery v. Betts, 422 S.W.2d 149 (Tex.1968).

The Supreme Court denied a rehearing January 17, 1968, and the following day, January 18, the Commissioner issued a charter to Buttery and associates for the operation of Peoples Savings and Loan Association with its home office in Llano.

The Community case went to trial the second time on February 2, 1968. Peoples Savings and Loan sought to intervene. On Community’s motion, the trial court struck 'the Peoples’ plea in intervention. Buttery and associates, as organizers of Peoples Savings and Loan, had been original inter-venors in the Community case almost from its inception.

Upon retrial of this case, the district court entered judgment on February 14, 1968, holding that the Commissioner’s order denying Community’s application for a branch office in Llano was not reasonably supported by substantial evidence and was therefore null and void.

From this judgment appeal has been taken by the Commissioner, the Buttery group, and by Peoples Savings and Loan Association.

Appellants assign six points of error. The principal contention made is that the trial court erred in ignoring the fact that, after [711]*711a final judgment in court, Buttery and associates had been granted a charter for Peoples Savings and Loan to serve a community admittedly unable to support more than one such institution.

The trial court struck the intervention of Peoples in which Peoples sought to raise this issue in the trial court. The trial court also sustained special exceptions to similar pleadings contained in the Commissioner’s amended answer filed shortly before the second trial of Community’s case.

The trial court declined to take notice of the grant of a charter to Peoples and considered Community’s appeal solely upon the basis of the facts and records before the Commissioner at the time he entered his order of October 3, 1966.

We find this was error. We reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment for appellants.

The application of Community for a branch office in Llano was filed with the Commissioner on March 28, 1966. The application was set down for hearing on May 31, 1966. A few days before the hearing H. L. Buttery and associates filed their application for a charter to authorize Peoples to operate in Llano. The Commissioner held the hearing on Community’s application as scheduled, but deferred decision on the branch office application until he had conducted a hearing on the charter application on September 1, 1966.

In reaching his decision on the two applications, the Commissioner considered the record made in both cases. On October 3, 1966, the Commissioner entered two separate orders in which he denied each application. It was from these two orders that both Community and the Buttery group appealed to district court in separate cases. As already indicated, the trial court refused to consolidate the causes on motion of Buttery to which Community had made objection.

The Commissioner found that there was no public need for either the branch office or the new charter in Llano, and that the volume of business in the community was not such as to indicate a profitable operation either for Community with a branch office or for Peoples under the proposed charter.

The trial court, after separate hearings and under separate judgments, found against the Commissioner and remanded the two applications for grant of a branch office to Community and a charter for Peoples, both to operate in Llano.

It is uncontroverted under the record that Llano and its environs could not support two new savings and loan facilities. In its motion “to set hearing” on motion for new trial, following the first trial, Community joined Buttery and associates in their motion for new trial in the Community case. Community urged that the trial court had erred in failing to determine that there was a public need and a volume of business in Llano for only one new savings and loan facility. This action was consistent with the position maintained by Community before the Commissioner.

Counsel for Community argued before the Commissioner that there was not “room enough for both” facilities under consideration. The president and manager of Community, a witness before the Commissioner, testified that he did not think there was sufficient business for more than one facility.

The witness was asked, “Is there enough business, is there a sufficient volume of business, loans available to be made and savings deposits available in the Llano and Burnet County area, I mean Llano County and the lakes, to support both your branch, which you proposed in Llano County, and a new association ?”

In response the witness testified, “No, sir, I don’t think there is.”

Appellants contend that while the two appeals were before the trial court, the court' [712]*712should have determined that there was sufficient business to support one facility and then send the applications back to the Commissioner to decide which one should serve Llano.

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Related

Community Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Peoples Savings & Loan Ass'n
433 S.W.2d 172 (Texas Supreme Court, 1968)

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430 S.W.2d 708, 1968 Tex. App. LEXIS 2456, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peoples-savings-loan-assn-of-llano-v-community-savings-loan-assn-texapp-1968.