Zachary v. Home Owners Loan Corp.

117 S.W.2d 153, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 1146
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided May 12, 1938·No. No. 10608.·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

CODY, Justice.

This appeal has been submitted here on the transcript, without a statement of facts. There are no findings of fact nor conclu sions of law, and none was requested. No claim is made that the pleadings of the plaintiff, in whose favor judgment was rendered below, are not sufficient to support such judgment. What the pleadings were is sufficiently indicated from the judgment rendered on them. The jury were directed to return a verdict for plaintiff (appellee here), and judgment thereon was rendered. October 22, 1936. Defendants, though they had been duly served with citation, and had filed an answer, were not in court when the case was tried on that day. Such judgment was rendered on the instructed verdict, that plaintiff recover of and from defendants “title and possession to the land and premises, together with all improvements .thereon, described as follows, to-wit: Lot Tw'en' ty (20), Block One Hundred Twenty-eight . (128) North Norhill Addition to the City of Houston, on the N.S.B.B. out of the John' Austin Survey in Harris County, Texas, together with all improvements thereon.”

On October 24, 1936, defendants filed a motion- for a new trial, which is quite long. On November 14, 1936, the plaintiff filed its answer thereto. In view of the action taken by the court on the hearing of such motion and answer thereto, it is not necessary to give their substance. The hearing was on November 19, 1936. The court found that the judgment rendered on October 22, 1936, should be modified, and that appellee should recover a personal judgment against defendant, A. L. Zachary, for the debt sued on, together with judgment against him and Mrs. Zachary, his wife, foreclosing the liens securing such 'indebtedness, and recited that “the court having found from the un-controverted evidence and upon the express admission of defendants that the law and the facts are with the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff’s cause of action is a liquidated one upon notes and written instruments, Orders, Adjudges and Decrees accordingly, and it is therefore on this the 19th day of November, 1936, Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed by the Court, that the judgment entered on the 22nd day of October, 1936, be set aside, and judgment now rendered as follows (It is not necessary to set ’ forth the details of the judgment. Suffice it to say xthat the judgment was for plaintiff against Mr. Zachary for the sum of $3,207.-00, together with interest from date at the rate of 8% per annum; and established in plaintiff a first, prior, valid and subsisting lien on the same property described in the judgment which had been entered on Octo.-ber 22, 1936, and foreclosed it.)

Mrs. Zachary alone has appealed. She 'urges but two assignments of error, and urges these as fundamental. They are:

1. That the trial court erred in having disregarded the verdict of the jury, and without proper motion and notice to the opposite party entered judgment non ob-stante veredicto upon an entirely different, and unrelated, and unsubmitted issue of the. case.

2. That the trial court erred in having failed and refused to have had the matters in issue, upon new trial, heard and determined by a jury, when appellant had complied with the statutory requirements entitling her to a jury.

We overrule appellant’s assignments.

From, the modified judgment Of November 19, 1936, it appears that defendants were then in court, in person and by attorney, and that the court found that the law and the facts were with the plaintiff, and accordingly rendered such modified judgment. The directed verdict on which the court had rendered judgment on October 22, 1936, was a verdict in form only, not one in fact. As stated by the Supreme Court, speaking through the Commission, “It has often been held that where there is no issuable fact to be submitted for the determination of the jury the court may, if it desires, withdraw the case from the jury and render such judgment as is proper. This being true, we can perceive no valid reason why the court * * * could not properly render the .judgment demanded by the undisputed evidence even if it be conceded that the verdict which the court had directed the jury to return was in fact insufficient upon which to base a judgment.” Zachary v. City of Uvalde, Tex.Com.App., 42 S.W.2d 417, 419. See Adams v. Houston National Bank, Tex.Com.App., 1 S.W.2d 878, opinion approved; American . Surety Co. v. Sheerin, Dallas Court of Civil Appeals, 203 S.W. 1120. The situation presented by the action of the court in modify *156 ing the judgment of October 22, 1936, thereafter on November 19, 1936, is not affected by the 1931 amendment to Article 2211, R.S.1925, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St, art. 2211. Prior to such amendment the court could have modified, at the same term at which it was rendered, a judgment which he had rendered on an instructed verdict, because he could, had he chosen, have dismissed the jury, and rendered the proper judgment. This, because an instructed verdict is no verdict at all. In other words, the judgment rendered on October 22, 1936, was the legal equivalent of the court having dismissed the jury at the conclusion of the evidence and rendered the judgment he believed proper.

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Zachary v. Home Owners Loan Corp., 117 S.W.2d 153, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 1146 (Tex. Ct. App. 1938).

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