Union Mortgage Co. v. McDonald

30 S.W.2d 506, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 724
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 12, 1930
DocketNo. 12410.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 30 S.W.2d 506 (Union Mortgage Co. v. McDonald) 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
Union Mortgage Co. v. McDonald, 30 S.W.2d 506, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 724 (Tex. Ct. App. 1930).

Opinion

CONNER, O. J.

This appeal presents closing proceedings in the litigation of the Baptist Missionary & .Educational Convention of the State of Texas v. J. E. Knox et al. The convention is an incorporated body of the Colored Baptists of Texas, designed to promote the educational and religious interests of that church, and the litigation grew out of the claims of rival factions in the church, each claiming authority to control the convention and administer its affairs. One faction was headed by E. L. Harrison; the other by E. Arlington Wilson. Harrison sought by injunction to restrain the Wilson group from exercising the functions of officers of the convention then in session in the city of Sherman/ Tex. On appeal from the judgment of the district court, the Dallas Court of Civil Appeals held that the group headed by E. D. Harrison had been the duly elected officers of the convention and invested with authority as such.

During the pendency of the appeal to'the Dallas court, to wit, on February 2, 1929, J. E. Knox, a member of the Harrison faction, instituted suit in the district court of Tar-rant county for the appointment of a receiver of the properties of the convention. On a hearing the district court appointed W. M. McDonald, of the city of Fort Worth, receiver, and such appointment was confirmed by this court on appeal, as may be seen by reference to our opinion handed down on November 2, 1929. See Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention v. Knox (Tex. Civ. App.) 23 S. W. (2d) 781, where a history of the controversy is indicated.

After the appeal to this court,., the receiver proceeded in the discharge of his duties, and under the orders of the district court accumulated a large sum of money from sales of certain properties of the convention and from other sources which was subject to the claims of some fifty or more creditors who had intervened in the receivership suit. On March 30, 1930, the case was called in the district court and the claims of intervening creditors were heard and passed upon. The judgment recites that the convention, thé receiver, and each of the intervening creditors had been duly cited and appeared; that the funds in the hands of the receiver was sufficient to pay all approvable claims, costs of the receiver, etc., and approved and ordered the receiver to pay certain claims of specified inter-veners ranging from $30 to $3,027.65; aggregating a total of $64,731.85.

*507 Among others, the appellant Unión Mort-. gage Company and appellant J. E. Whitehead, president of the mortgage company, each had intervened. The mortgage company presented an itemized account or claim of indebtedness against the convention, aggregating $370.45. J. E. Whitehead, who had co-operated with the Wilson faction, claimed attorney’s fee of $1,000, and for certain sums advanced, costs paid, etc., all aggregating $1,-278.36. The court approved the claim of the mortgage company to the extent of $183.35, and ordered the payment thereof, but denied the balance of the claim. The court further denied the claim of Whitehead altogether, and each of these interveners by separate appeal now complain of the judgments so rendered.

Appellees first urge a dismissal of the appeal of the mortgage company on the ground that it is a foreign corporation whose permit to do business in this state has been forfeited and the present intervention is prosecuted without a renewal of the permit.

Article 7091, Rev. Oiv. Statutes of 1925, provides that corporations that shall fail to pay the franchise tax prescribed by that law within the period specified shall forfeit its right to do business in this state. In such cases, the forfeiture is consummated by the secretary of state entering upon the margin of the record kept in his office the words, “right to do business forfeited,” giving the date of such forfeiture. Under the terms of the next article of the statute, a corporation may be relieved of the forfeiture by paying the tax and penalties prescribed at any time within six months. These articles also provide that any corporation that shall süffer a forfeiture without a revival “shall be denied the right to sue or defend in any court of this State, except in a suit to forfeit the charter of such corporation.”

In caSes where the fact of forfeiture and failure to obtain relief therefrom have been seasonably brought to the attention of the court, the quoted provisions of the statutes above have been applied and enforced. Canadian Country Club v. Johnson (Tex. Civ. App.) 176 S. W. 835; Millsaps v. Johnson (Tex. Civ. App.) 196 S. W. 202; Dunlap v. Southerlin, 63 Tex. 38. But in its petition of intervention, the Union Mortgage Company fails to state whether it has been duly incorporated either as a domestic or foreign corporation, or whether it is an association of persons engaged in a common enterprise or a partnership, or whether it was doing business under an anonymous name. It does not appear, however, that the court was called upon, to rule on any general or special exception calling for a more specific statement of the character of the intervening mortgage company. Nor does it appear that any verified plea in behalf of appellees was presented which questioned the capacity of the mortgage company to sue, as required by clause 2 of article 2010 of our statutes relating to pleadings; nor wa's the capacity of the intervening plaintiff to maintain its plea of intervention questioned or urged in the court below by any assignment of error or in a motion for new trial. On the contrary, for the first time and as part of the motion to dismiss it is made to appear by certificates of the secretary of state that the Union Mortgage Company is a foreign corporation whose permit to do business in this state was forfeited July 2, 1925, prior to the filing of the company’s plea of intervention, and that no relief therefrom has been secured. Under such circumstances, we think it now too late to raise the question. In Panhandle Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Kellogg Switchboard & S. Co., 62 Tex. Civ. App. 402, 132 S. W. 963, writ of error denied, it was held in effect that the issue of a corporation’s right to do business in Texas without a permit can only be raised by plea and supporting evidence in the trial court. The question is not one affecting our jurisdiction, and we approve the holding in the case last cited and conclude that appel-lee’s motion to dismiss the appeal of the Union Mortgage Company must be overruled.

This brings us to a consideration of the joint brief filed in behalf of the interveners Union Mortgage Company and J. E. Whitehead. Each of these interveners separately present in a joint brief two assignments of error. Those assignments are identical in terms and read as follows:

“1. The court erred upon consideration of the law and evidence at the trial in. denying judgment in favor of intervener, the Union Mortgage Company, for the full amount of its debt claimed.
“2. The court erred in entering judgment for the receiver denying the debt claimed by this intervener, the Union Mortgage Company.”

Neither assignment is followed by either of the appealing interveners with propositions or a statement of the evidence with references to the statement of facts.

In the rules prescribed for the government of Courts of Civil Appeals, rule 23 provides that: “Said record should contain an assignment of errors as required by the statute.”

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Commercial Inv. Co. of Uvalde v. Graves
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Bluebook (online)
30 S.W.2d 506, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 724, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/union-mortgage-co-v-mcdonald-texapp-1930.