Ware v. Jones

248 S.W. 429
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 3, 1923
DocketNo. 10517. [fn*]
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 248 S.W. 429 (Ware v. Jones) 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
Ware v. Jones, 248 S.W. 429 (Tex. Ct. App. 1923).

Opinion

DUNKLIN, J.

G. W. Ware has appealed from, an order of the judge of tbe district court declining him a temporary writ of injunction which was sought to restrain the sale of property belonging to him under an execution which had been executed on a judgment of tbe Court of Civil Appeals, reported in 233 S. W. 355, which judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court, as reported in 242 S. W. 1022, the style of the case in those courts being Ware v. Jones. Those two judgments were rendered upon appeal from the district court, in which the suit for injunction was instituted, and the basis for the injunctive relief sought consisted in the contention presented by appropriate allegations that the judgment from which that appeal was prosecuted was not a final judgment, and that therefore the judgments of the two appellate courts were void for lack of jurisdiction in those courts to render them.

That suit was instituted by G. W. Ware, appellant here, against J. R. Jones and wife, to recover title to a lot or parcel of land situated in the city of Fort Worth, and plaintiff claimed title under a deed of conveyance to him executed by defendants Jones and wife. By alternative plea plaintiff ashed for a foreclosure of a vendor’s lien on the property to secure the payment of a promissory note for the sum of $2,820.

One defense urged by Jones and wife was that they were husband and wife, and that the city property sought to be recovered by plaintiff was their homestead at the time the deed relied on by plaintiff was executed. They further alleged that, when the said deed of conveyance was executed, defendants also conveyed to plaintiff three other tracts of land situated in Tarrant county, aggregating 235 acres, upon plaintiff’s agreement to pay off certain incumbrances outstanding against them, and hold the land in trust for defendants’ benefit, with privilege of redeeming the same by paying to plaintiff the amount expended in the discharge of its incumbrance; that plaintiff thereafter refused to comply with said agreement, and sold two of the tracts to other persons. Defendants also alleged that the deed to the city property was understood by and between the parties thereto not to be a deed of conveyance, but merely a mortgage to secure plaintiff in the amount he might pay to discharge a lien outstanding against that property, and which plaintiff agreed to discharge.

One of the three tracts of land situated in the county, and which appears not to have been sold by plaintiff, Ware, consisted of 39.8 acres, bn that tract William Capps held a lien, and he intervened in the suit and sought a foreclosure of that lien, and also a lien on the city property, which were alleged to be superior to any liens or claims thereon by the plaintiff or the defendants.

Upon the trial of that case the defendants Jones and wife were awarded title to the city property on their plea of homestead, but a foreclosure was decreed in favor of plaintiff, and also'the intervener, of their respective liens against tbe city property, and also the 39.8 acres tract as against the defendants; the intervener’s lien being declared superior to plaintiff’s lien. The decree of foreclosure in favor of intervener, Capps, directed that the proceeds of the sale of both the 39.8-acre tract and the city property should be applied first to the satisfac: tion of the intervener’s debt, the amount of which was stated in the judgment, and that the balance, if any, should “be held subject to the further orders of this court.”

The trial of that case was before a jury who by their verdict found in favor of the defendants on their cross-action damages in tbe sum of $6,570.26, but the trial court refused to enter judgment in defendants’ favor for the damages so found. Upon appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court in so far as it had refused to allow the defendants a recovery for the damages awarded by the jury on. their cross-action, and rendered judgment in defendants’ favor for such dam *431 ages. But the judgment in all other respects was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, and also by the Supreme Court on writ of error. The injunction sought in this suit was upon the theory that the judgment rendered by the trial court was not a final judgment, and therefore neither the Court of Civil Appeals nor the Supreme Court acquired jurisdiction of the appeal therefrom, principally because of the provision in the judgment that any excess remaining from the proceeds of the sales of the two pieces of property under foreclosure decreed to inter-vener, Capps, should be held subject to the further orders of the trial court.

The agreed statement of facts presented upon this appeal contains the following:

. “It is also agreed without the necessity of introducing in evidence herein the pleadings in said original suit that all the matters and things adjudicated by the judgment above set forth wore made issues by the pleadings, and that the property and the parties referred to in the said judgment were parties and issues in the said litigation made by the said pleadings. Except, the pleadings of the parties did not raise any issue as to the ownership of any balance of the proceeds of the foreclosure sales of land after satisfying the debts for which such foreclosures were ordered, unless such issue was necessarily made by the pleadings which did raise the issues of title to such lands in defendants Jones and wife, and liens with right in the intervener and plaintiff!, Ware, of foreclosure against such lands.”

The foregoing statement of what the pleadings were in the original suit has been made by us from a reading of the judgment of the trial court and also of the Court of Civil Appeals, referred to above.

Article 1997, V. S. Tex. Civ. Statutes, reads as follows:

“Only one final judgment shall be rendered in any cause, except where it is otherwise specially provided by law.”

The present suit is not within any of such exceptions.

In Hanks v. Thompson, 5 Tex. 8, the following is said:

“A final judgment must mean then, the awarding the judicial consequences which the law attaches to the facts, and determines the subject-matter of controversy between the parties.”

In Warren v. Shuman, 5 Tex. 441, it is held:

“A judgment is final only when the whole of the matter in controversy is disposed of.”

In T. & P. Ry. Co. v. Fort Worth Street Ry. Co., 75 Tex. 82, 12 S. W. 977, our Supreme Court said:

“Until there is a judgment which leaves nothing further to he litigated about in the case, unless it he something which relates to the execution of the judgment, there is no final judgment.”

Many other authorities might be cited to the same effect. But it will be observed that, according to a definition so given, the finality of the judgment depends upon whether or not the issues in controversy between the parties were finally determined.

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Related

Bushnell v. Holtermann
32 S.W.2d 899 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1930)
City of Abilene v. McMahan
292 S.W. 525 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1927)
Ware v. Jones
250 S.W. 663 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1923)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
248 S.W. 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ware-v-jones-texapp-1923.