Stallings v. Jim Handley, Inc.

181 S.W.2d 814, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 797
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 13, 1944
DocketNo. 11640.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 181 S.W.2d 814 (Stallings v. Jim Handley, Inc.) 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
Stallings v. Jim Handley, Inc., 181 S.W.2d 814, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 797 (Tex. Ct. App. 1944).

Opinion

GRAVES, Justice.

On the 27th day of February, 1941, the appellant, here, in her main suit below, obtained a judgment against J. B. Handley, personally, in the County Court at Law of Harris County, Texas, for $774.90, the cause number being 45872, styled Avis Stallings, Plaintiff, v. Jim Handley, Defendant. On the 9th day of June, 1943, the plaintiff in that cause filed application for writs of garnishment after judgment, bearing No. 45872-A, in the same County Court .at Law of Harris County, Texas, wherein she, this appellant, applied for a writ of garnishment, each against Jim Handley, Inc., a corporation, Guardian Trust Company, a corporation, the First National Bank in Houston, a corporation, and Mildred Handley, who are the appellees herein, alleging therein that on the 27th day of February, 1941, in such cause No. 45872, the appellant had obtained a personal judgment against Jim B. Handley, Defendant, in the sum of $774.90, with accrued interest thereon of $109.09, and cost of suit in the amount of $4.30, and that such judgment was valid, subsisting, and remained wholly unsatisfied.

In due course the appellees, Jim Handley, Inc.*, and Mildred Handley, duly filed their motion to quash the garnishment for the reason that those two appellees had not been made parties defendant in such main suit, nor had there been a judgment obtained against either of them in that suit, hence the ancillary garnishment proceedings against them were without proper basis in law, and were not enforceable.

The trial court heard this motion of the two appellees named and quashed the garnishment proceedings as against them, on the ground they so declared upon. Accordingly, on the 26th day of June, 1943, the court discharged the proceedings as against Jim Handley, Inc., and Mildred Handley, and further ordered that the First National Bank in Houston and the Guardian Trust Company should neither be required to file answers as garnishees for Jim Handley, Inc., and Mildred Handley, nor required to hold in suspense any funds, or effects, belonging to the two named ap-pellees, and that these appellees themselves were discharged from the garnishment proceedings, except as garnishees, which they were required to answer in that capacity.

All of the appellees thereupon complied with the orders of the court with reference to so answering as garnishees, denying that they owed J. B. (or Jim) Handley *815 anything, except the Bank reported its books showed a 73-cent balance in his favor. Although appellant excepted to that order, she has presented to this court no appeal therefrom, as against any of the appellees now here.

Thereafter, in a trial of the cause on its merits before a jury, and after the appellant had presented all of her testimony and had rested, the trial court, in response to motions therefor filed at that stage by all the appellees, granted all of such motions and rendered judgment in favor of the several appellees against appellant, under this recitation:

“The court, having considered same, heard argument of counsel, and determined that plaintiff failed to discharge her burden of proof, and that, as a matter of law, no issue or issues were raised by the evidence to be submitted to the jury under plaintiff’s pleading and proof, as adduced before the court and jury.”

It was further decreed that appellant recover against the Bank the 73 cents referred to, supra, as having been a balance due J. B. Handley upon its books, and .that each of the appellees recover against appellant specified respective sums as attorney’s fees, incurred by them in the garnishment proceedings.

Appellant presents these three points of error in protest against the judgment so adverse to her below, to-wit:

“Point One. The court should not have granted an instructed verdict in this case, and erred in,so doing, because, under the evidence, the ‘Jim Handley, Inc.’ is a one man corporation, owned and controlled by Jim Handley, to conduct his business; that same is a ‘One Man Corporation’, owned and controlled by Jim Handley and his family, a family corporation, used and controlled by Jim Handley, to condúct his business, and to defraud his creditors, thereby enabling him to avoid paying judgments against him.
“Point Two. The Court should not have instructed the jury in this case to find for the defendants, and erred in so doing, because the evidence showed that ‘Jim Hand-ley, Inc., is a family corporation’, in which Jim Handley conducted his individual business to defraud his creditors; that same was his ‘Alter Ego’.
“Point Three. The trial court should not have entered a judgment and decree on the date of 26th day of June, 1943, quashing the Garnishment against Jim Handley, Inc., and Mildred Handley, and holding that the various banks need not answer, for in so doing, Jim Handley was enabled to defraud his creditors and refuse to pay his honest debts, because the funds of Jim Handley was deposited in the name of Jim Handley, Inc.”

None of these contentions, it is determined, should be sustained. Disposing of the third one first, as the preceding statement of the facts has disclosed, appellant prosecuted no appeal whatever from the interlocutory order of the trial court entered on June 26 of 1943, among other orders affecting the other parties, quashing the garnishment writ as against appellees, Jim Handley, Inc., and Mildred Handley, hence, under Rule 385, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, regulating appeals from such orders to the Courts of Civil Appeals, she sinned away her day of grace within which she might have, under Section (b), had that order reviewed here.

However, should the assignment be considered here, it would have to be overruled anyway, because the law seems well settled in Texas, under Article 4076, Section 3, of Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes, that in such circumstances no judgment in garnishment could have been rendered against any of the appellees, and especially against Jim Handley, Inc., and Mildred Handley, for the reason that they had not even been parties to the appellant’s main suit for debt in the county court at law, nor had any judgment therein been rendered against them.

In other words, no garnishment against the funds of these two appellees in the hands of the other appellees, who are alleged to have money or assets belonging to those two appellees, without its having been first determined in some way that those two appellees were indebted to the plaintiff in garnishment, would lie. Article 4076, Vernon’s Civil Statutes of Texas, Vol. 13, page 1, Section 3; Automobile Finance Company v. Bryan, Tex.Civ.App., 3 S.W.2d 835-840; City National Bank of San Antonio v. Steadman, Tex.Civ.App., 21 S.W.2d 23; Buie-Crawford Company v. Cleburne National Bank, Tex.Civ.App., 111 S.W.2d 830.

Appellant’s points one and two together make the single contention, contrary to the *816

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181 S.W.2d 814, 1944 Tex. App. LEXIS 797, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stallings-v-jim-handley-inc-texapp-1944.