American Home Products Corp. v. Clark

• Decision Date: 21 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-1056,99-1056
• Citation: 44 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 284,38 S.W.3d 92
• Parties: (Tex. 2000) American Home Products Corporation and Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, a division of American Home Products Corporation, Petitioners v. Fawn C. Clark, Sylvia Jacobson, Anna Kraus, Sharlet Laws, Nancy Webster, Donna Welch, Delia Zeeh, Carol Bodily, Mary Jo Hall, and Shonna Bush, Respondents
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 92

38 S.W.3d 92 (Tex. 2000)

American Home Products Corporation and Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, a division of American Home Products Corporation, Petitioners v. Fawn C. Clark, Sylvia Jacobson, Anna Kraus, Sharlet Laws, Nancy Webster, Donna Welch, Delia Zeeh, Carol Bodily, Mary Jo Hall, and Shonna Bush, Respondents

No. 99-1056

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS

Argued September 6, 2000.

Decided December 21, 2000.

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Tenth District of Texas

Justice Baker delivers the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Phillips, Justice Enoch, Justice Abbott, Justice Hankinson, Justice O'Neill, and Justice Gonzales join.

This case requires us to interpret the interrelation between sections 15.002, 15.003, and 15.064 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. American Home Products Corporation and its division Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories (American Home), challenged the propriety of venue in Johnson County, Texas, of the nonresident plaintiffs under sections 15.002 and 15.003 of the Code. The trial court held that each plaintiff had established venue against all defendants under sections 15.002(a)(2) and 15.005 of the Code. American Home filed an interlocutory appeal from the trial court's order. The court of appeals dismissed American Home's appeal for want of jurisdiction. 999 S.W.2d 908. The primary issue in this case is whether section 15.003(c) grants a court of appeals interlocutory appellate jurisdiction over all venue decisions that relate to intervention or joinder. We hold that the court of appeals correctly held it does not. Accordingly, we affirm its judgment.

I. JURISDICTION

A. The Code Provisions

Under the Legislature's general venue scheme, except as otherwise provided, all lawsuits shall be brought in the county of the defendant's residence at the time the cause of action accrued if the defendant is a natural person. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.002(a)(2). When a plaintiff has established proper venue against a defendant, the court also has venue of all the defendants in all claims or actions arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.005. In a suit in which more than one plaintiff is joined, each plaintiff must independently establish proper venue. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.003(a). The Legislature has provided that no interlocutory appeal shall lie from a trial court's determination of a venue question. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.064(a). But the Legislature has provided the right of limited interlocutory appeal in an intervention or joinder situation:

Any person seeking intervention or joinder, who is unable to independently establish proper venue, or a party opposing intervention or joinder of such a person may contest the decision of the trial court allowing or denying intervention or joinder by taking an interlocutory appeal to the court of appeals' district in which the trial court is located under the procedures established for interlocutory appeals.

Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.003(c).

B. Procedural History

Here, eleven plaintiffs sued ten defendants in Johnson County, Texas, claiming injuries resulting from taking diet drugs commonly known as Fen-Phen. Nine plaintiffs live outside Texas, one lives in Gregg County, Texas, and only one lives in Johnson County, the county of suit. American Home does not challenge venue as it relates to the Johnson County resident. American Home filed a Motion to Transfer Venue, Objection to Attempted Joinder, and a Motion to Strike or Sever the Plaintiffs. It challenged the propriety of venue of the nonresident plaintiffs in Johnson County under both sections 15.002 and 15.003 of the Code. The plaintiffs responded to these motions by filing affidavits of each plaintiff, an affidavit of one of their attorneys, and affidavits of their experts. The trial court conducted a nonevidentiary hearing and denied all American Home's motions without specifying the grounds for its decision.

American Home filed an interlocutory appeal of the trial court's order. American Home asserted that the plaintiffs could not establish venue under section 15.002(a) and that they had failed to establish joinder under section 15.003(a). The plaintiffs contended that they had established venue under section 15.002(a) because each had individually sued the Johnson County physician who had treated the Johnson County plaintiff.

The court of appeals observed that the trial court's order did not specify on what ground the trial court had denied American Home's Motion to Transfer. Thus, the court could not determine whether it had jurisdiction of American Home's appeal. Accordingly, it abated the appeal and requested the trial court to enter an order specifying the basis for its ruling. 3 S.W.3d 57.

The trial court signed a revised order, which held that (1) the plaintiffs each established venue against the Johnson County physician under section 15.002(a)(2), and (2) because the plaintiffs established venue against the physician, venue was proper against all other defendants under section 15.005. Subsequently, the court of appeals, with one judge dissenting, held that because the trial court's denial of American Home's motions was under section 15.002, it had no interlocutory-appeal jurisdiction. 999 S.W.2d 908. Here, American Home raises two issues: (1) whether the court of appeals abused its discretion by abating the appeal and requiring the trial court to enter a clarifying order; and (2) whether, under section 15.003(c), a court of appeals has interlocutory appellate jurisdiction over all venue decisions that relate to intervention or joinder.

C. Analysis

American Home recognizes that the law requires a party to wait until a final judgment is entered in a case to appeal an erroneous venue ruling See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.064(a); Wilson v. Texas Parks & Wildlife Dep't, 886 S.W.2d 259, 262 (Tex. 1994). However, American Home asserts that this rule does not apply in multi-plaintiff trials because the Legislature has provided an avenue for speedy pretrial appellate review in section 15.003.

American Home recognizes that a court of appeals may only exercise interlocutory jurisdiction under section 15.003 if the joining party is unable to establish proper venue independently under section 15.002. But American Home also notes that section 15.003 requires a court of appeals to decide the joinder issue based upon an independent determination from the record. Therefore, it contends that when a plaintiff argues venue under both sections 15.002 and 15.003, the court of appeals must independently determine whether the plaintiff can establish venue under section 15.002 to determine whether it has jurisdiction under section 15.003.

American Home further contends that a court of appeals must be able to review a trial court's decision to permit a multi-plaintiff case to proceed in the face of a venue or joinder challenge, regardless of the expressed basis for the trial court's decision, if section 15.003 is to retain any meaning. Thus, American Home argues, to determine its own jurisdiction under section 15.003(c), a court of appeals must decide whether a party is a person unable to independently establish proper venue.

On the other hand, the plaintiffs argue that the Legislature has expressly mandated that venue determinations are not subject to interlocutory appeal. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.064(a). They argue that while section 15.003's plain language grants an interlocutory appeal to those opposing the joinder of persons who are unable to independently establish proper venue, that section does not grant an interlocutory appeal to those opposing the joinder of persons who are able to independently establish proper venue. Plaintiffs assert that, here, because the trial court determined that the plaintiffs independently established proper venue under sections 15.002 and 15.005, the trial court never reached the joinder issue under 15.003(a). Thus, the plaintiffs contend that interlocutory appellate jurisdiction does not exist under 15.003(c) to review the trial court's venue determination.

When we construe a statute, our objective is to determine and give effect to the Legislature's intent. Tex. Gov't Code § 312.005; Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Garrison Contractors Co., Inc., 966 S.W.2d 482, 484 (Tex. 1998). We endeavor to discover what the Legislature intended from the actual language that the Legislature used. Mitchell Energy Corp. v. Ashworth, 943 S.W.2d 436, 438 (Tex. 1997). We look first to the plain and common meaning of the statute's words. Fitzgerald v. Advanced Spine Fixation Sys., Inc., 996 S.W.2d 864, 865 (Tex. 1999).

Section 15.003 is not a venue statute; it is a joinder statute. The statute allows an interlocutory appeal for one specific purpose: to contest the trial court's decision allowing or denying intervention or joinder. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.003(c); Surgitek, Inc. v. Adams, 955 S.W.2d 884, 887 (Tex. App.--Corpus Christi 1997, pet. dism'd by agr.). Section 15.003(c) does not provide for an interlocutory appeal from the trial court's determination that a person seeking intervention or joinder has independently established proper venue. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 15.003(c); Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Goldston, 983 S.W.2d 369, 374 (Tex. App.--Fort Worth 1998, pet. dism'd by agr.); Adams, 955 S.W.2d at 887.

When the trial court's order necessarily determines an intervention or joinder issue under section 15.003(a), section 15.003(c) plainly allows for either party to contest that decision by taking an interlocutory appeal. See Tex. Civ. Prac & Rem. Code § 15.003(c); Surgitek v. Abel, 997 S.W.2d 598, 601 (Tex. 1999). Conversely, if the trial court determines that venue is proper under section 15.002, the inquiry is over. This is because section 15.003(a) takes as its starting...