Turman v. Turman

99 S.W.2d 947
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 11, 1936
DocketNo. 13398
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 99 S.W.2d 947 (Turman v. Turman) 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
Turman v. Turman, 99 S.W.2d 947 (Tex. Ct. App. 1936).

Opinions

BROWN, Justice...

This is a divorce suit which’was brought by appellee against appellant for the pur[949]*949pose of dissolving the bonds of matrimony then existing between the parties, for division of the estates, and seeking the custody of the two minor sons born to the parties.

The cause was tried with the assistance of a jury, and judgment having been rendered by the trial court dissolving the marital relations, dividing the properties, and awarding the care, custody, and control of the two minor sons to appellee, plaintiff below, the defendant below and appellant here brings the case up for review.

We find 95 assignments of error in appellant’s brief and more than 130 propositions. It would require an opinion far more lengthy than the issues involved and the record justifies for this court to specifically call attention to each assignment of error and each proposition urged.

This case was originally filed in the district court of Tarrant county on the 1st day of September, 1930. Judgment having been rendered heretofore in the case, an appeal was taken therefrom, the cause was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Court of Civil Appeals for the Sixth supreme judicial district of Texas, wherein a judgment was entered reversing the judgment of the trial court and remanding the cause. During the pendency of the case on the docket of the district court, appellant attempted to remove the cause to the District Court of the United -States for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, and appellant assigns error on the part of the District Court in that it denied his petition for removal and continued to exercise jurisdiction over the parties and the subject-matter. The assignment of error is not well taken for a number of reasons:

(1) No bond was tendered in connection with the petition for removal; (2) appellant was at the time claiming to be a citizen of Mexico and not of the United States, and the federal law (Jud.Code § 28, 28 U.S.C.A. § 71), which he undertook to invoke in his behalf, applies only to citizens of the United States; (3) we find no bill of exceptions in the record showing that the petition for removal was ever presented to the trial court or that the trial court ever acted thereupon; (4) the statute invoked does not apply to a situation such as is set forth in appellant’s petition for removal. That a bill of exceptions is necessary to present this character of error, see Paris & G. N. R. Co. v. Boston et al. (Tex.Civ.App.) 142 S.W. 944 (writ denied). As to the want of applicability of the federal statutes to the case at bar, see White v. Keown (D.C.) 261 F. 814; State of New Jersey v. Weinberger (D.C.) 38 F.(2d) 298.

Complaint is made by appellant of the argument of counsel for plaintiff concerning the attempted bribing of a witness, one Mrs. Andrews. No proper bill of exception to that argument appears in the record and the matter was not presented to the trial court on appellant’s motion for new trial, and we find no reason to consider the assignment of error. But if it were considered, no error appears, because in a case of this character the argument could not affect the judgment of the trial court.

By one so-called proposition, appellant complains that “a jury having been requested and the issues having been submitted to them, the trial court committed fundamental error in ignoring the findings of the jury herein on material issues and in entering judgment, notwithstanding such findings.” This proposition continues by saying, in substance, that this is true because article 2211 of our Civil Statutes (as amended by Acts 1931, c. 77, § 1 [Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 2211]) provides the method for the rendition of a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and the method therein provided for was not followed in this case. This proposition is too vague and general to point out any error on the part of the trial court, does not call the attention of the trial court to the issues referred to, or the findings thereon, or wherein the judgment is not in conformity therewith. But should we consider this proposition, we could find no merit in it because the matters of the decree of divorcement, the custody of the minor children, and the division of the properties owned by the spouses are all lodged in the discretion of the trial court, and only a flagrant abuse of sucii discretion would warrant an appellate court in disturbing the judgment of the trial court. Articles 4638 and 4639, R.C.S.; Becker v. Becker (Tex.Civ.App.) 299 S.W. 528, 529.

A study of this record discloses that the trial court attempted to obtain from appellant a sworn inventory of all of the properties, and although ordered to file such inventory, appellant declined to do so. Whatever finding a jury may have made, in our opinion, it could have been no more than advisory, and the trial court, af[950]*950ter considering the evidence before him and the statement and inventory of the receiver appointed in this cause by him, has evidently used his best judgment and discretion in ascertaining 'the status and in fairly dividing the property.

Appellant complains that the trial court erred in setting the cause for trial on its merits at the time same was set, urging that the mandate had not been received from the appellate court at the • time the case was set for trial. It appears that the court on the first Monday in September, 1934, as is the custom .in Tarrant county, set the cause for a hearing on October 8, 1934. It appears that the mandate from the Court of- Civil Appeals was received and filed on October 8, 1934, and that the cause came on for trial on the 10th day of October, 1934. We find nothing in appellant’s contention that the court was without jurisdiction to either set or try the cause. The trial court reacquired jurisdiction of the case, after its appeal, when the mandate of the appellate court was received and filed in the office of the clerk of the trial court. Dixie Gas & Fuel Co. v. Jacobs (Tex.Civ.App.) 66 S.W.(2d) 446.

Appellant had ample time in which to get ready for .this trial, and the record discloses that he did make an effort to get ready for trial.

Complaint is made that it was an abuse of judicial discretion for the trial court to proceed to trial on October 8, 1934, because the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas had made and entered an order on October 6, 1934, in the matter of L. C. Turman, bankrupt, restraining appellee, her agent and attorney, from prosecuting any proceeding in any other court, for the purpose of fixing a lien or foreclosing upon, or taking possession of any property involved in the petition for review of the referee’s order, pending in the United States District Court. We are of the opinion that the district court of Tarrant county, as between appellant and appellee, had the unquestioned right to proceed to trial, as was done, regardless of the order of the United States District Court. We are of the opinion that it was not error for the district court to enter judgment partitioning the community property, even though it was involved in the bankruptcy case, complaint being likewise made as to this action of the trial court.

Proposition G,- being appellant’s seventh proposition, is too multifarious for consideration. But an examination of the record discloses that the trial court did not err in overruling appellant’s motion for. continuance.

As to the complaint that a second application for continuance was erroneously overruled, we call attention to the fact that the record shows no such second application.

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99 S.W.2d 947, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/turman-v-turman-texapp-1936.