Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Fisher

Citation152 Tex. 29,253 S.W.2d 656
Decision Date26 November 1952
Docket NumberNo. A-3680,A-3680
PartiesHUMBLE OIL & REFINING CO. v. FISHER et al.
CourtSupreme Court of Texas

Felix A. Raymer and R. E. Seagler, Houston, Jones, Hardie, Grambling & Howell, El Paso, Robert Lee Bobbitt, Jr., San Antonio, S. L. Gill, Roger F. Robinson, Jesse G. Foster and S. P. Nielsen, Raymondville, for relator.

Cox, Wagner, Adams & Wilson, Brownsville, Thomas Hart Fisher, Chicago, Ill., for respondent.

SMEDLEY, Justice.

Relator, Humble Oil & Refining Company, which was petitioner in Cause No. A-3126 decided by this Court on October 31, 1951, Tex.Sup., 244 S.W.2d 637, seeks to have a writ of prohibition issued against respondents, Edwin K. Atwood and Alice B. Atwood, who were the respondents in that cause, and against Thomas Hart Fisher and others, who were their attorneys, to prohibit respondents from attempting by pleading filed or otherwise to cause to be tried in the District Court of Willacy County or in any other Texas court issues which were decided and concluded by this Court's judgment. The two judges of the district courts of Willacy County are also named as respondents herein, but for brevity the respondents other than the two judges are referred to as respondents.

The substance of the allegations of relator's petition is: that since the rendition of this Court's final judgment respondents have filed in Cause No. 1539 in the 103rd District Court of Willacy County, which rendered the final judgment later affirmed by this Court's judgment in Cause No. A-3126, a written demand for a jury 'for the trial of all issues of fact, and of each and every issue of fact, raised by the pleadings in said cause'; that respondents have also filed in said cause in the district court 159 written interrogatories to be answered by several of the officers of relator, the Humble Oil & Refining Company; and that they have also filed in said cause in district court a request for the admission of facts and genuineness of documents set out and designated in 102 numbered paragraphs. It is further alleged in the petition that the written demand for jury trial, the interrogatories and the request for admissions disclose an intention on the part of respondents to ignore this Court's judgment and to demand a trial of issues foreclosed by the judgment, and that the interrogatories filed and the admissions sought deal only with issues foreclosed by the judgment and are relevant to them and are neither relevant nor pertinent to the issue of accounting, the sole issue which the trial court under this Court's judgment is authorized to try and determine.

Respondents have filed a full answer supported by brief. They admit the filing of the written demand for jury, the interrogatories and the request for admissions, and admit further that many of the interrogatories and requests for admissions are relevant to other issues than that of accounting. The position taken by respondents in their answer and brief is, stated generally: that only the issues of res judicata and estoppel have been tried in the district court, and that respondents have the right to a trial in district court upon the merits of all of the issues pleaded in their First Amended Original Petition filed in Cause No. 1539; that this Court did not determine and had no jurisdiction to determine in Cause No. A-3126 the merits of any of the issues properly pleaded in respondents' petition other than the separately tried issues of res judicata and estoppel; and that had this Court undertaken to determine any of those other issues it would have deprived the respondents of their constitutional rights to their 'day in court' and to a jury trial.

All of respondents' First Amended Original Petition filed in Cause No. 1539, except several comparatively brief paragraphs alleged as alternative pleadings attacking the oil and gas leases involved herein as invalid and subject to cancellation or reformation on several grounds, is devoted to allegations attempting to show that the two oil and gas leases were executed as security for repayment of a loan made by relator, and that respondents Edwin K. Atwood and Alice B. Atwood are entitled to a right of redemption, the debt having been paid, and to judgment removing the oil and gas leases as clouds on their title.

In Cause No. 1539 in the district court of Willacy County relator Humble Oil & Refining Company and other defendants pleaded in bar as res judicata of all of the issues raised in the First Amended Original Petition judgments which had theretofore been rendered in three suits brought by respondents Edwin K. Atwood and Alice B. Atwood in the United States District Court. The district court of Willacy County entered an order that the issues of res judicata and estoppel be tried first and separately from the trial on the merits, proceeded to hear evidence on those issues, and rendered final judgment sustaining the defendants' plea of res judicata, and ordered and adjudged that Edwin K. Atwood and Alice B. Atwood, respondents herein, 'are not entitled to any of the relief sought by them in this suit, and that such relief be and the same is hereby denied.'

On appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals that Court held that the judgments of the United States District Court were not conclusive of the question as to mortgage and the right to redeem, reversed the trial court's judgment, and remanded the cause for trial on the merits. Tex.Civ.App., 239 S.W.2d 412.

After the granting by this Court of writ of error and the submission of the cause as Cause No. A-3126, final judgment was rendered therein on October 31, 1951, described thus in this Court's opinion:

'Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals is reversed and the judgment of the trial court that plaintiffs take nothing is affirmed without prejudice to plaintiffs' right to an accounting for any money which may be due them as royalty owners under the oil and gas lease. Since plaintiffs prayed for an accounting and that portion of the case was severed before appeal, the trial court may proceed with that portion of the case, but only for the purpose of an accounting.' Humble Oil & Refining Company v. Atwood, Tex.Sup., 224 S.W.2d 637, 645.

The judgment rendered and entered on the minutes was in these terms:

'It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals be reversed and the judgment of the District Court decreeing that plaintiffs (respondents here) take nothing by their suit be in all things affirmed; without prejudice, however, to the said plaintiffs' right to an accounting for any money which may be due them as royalty owners under the oil and gas lease.

'It is further ordered that since plaintiffs below prayed for an accounting and that portion of the case was severed before appeal, the trial court may proceed with that portion of the case, but only for the purpose of an accounting.'

Except for what is said in this Court's opinion with reference to the issue as to mortgage and the right to redeem, and excepting the issue of accounting for royalty, the meaning and effect of the judgment and opinion in Cause No. A-3126 are that the Court approved the trial court's judgment that the plea of res judicata interposed by relator Humble Oil & Refining Company, and which was directed to all issues raised by the plaintiffs' First Amended Petition, should be sustained, and that this Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court, which was that, in view of the sustaining of the plea of res judicata, the plaintiffs were not entitled to any of the relief sought by them in the suit, and that all of the relief sought should be denied.

Such a judgment denying to a plaintiff the relief sought by his petition because the issues have been concluded against him by final judgments theretofore rendered is not the denial of a 'day in court', nor does it deprive the plaintiff of the right to trial by jury, nor can it correctly be said, as respondents argue, that the issues raised by the petition have never been determined in trial court. The adjudication by the trial court is that they have once before been tried and finally determined.

A great part of the argument in respondents' brief rests upon an erroneous construction of this Court's opinion in Cause No. A-3126. It is several times asserted in the brief that nowhere did the Court pass upon the question or questions of res judicata. This assumption on the part of respondents seems to be predicated in part at least on these statements in the opinion: 'Having determined that plaintiffs plead no cause of action, it is unnecessary for us to determine whether it was, or either could or should have been adjudicated in the Federal litigation. Plaintiffs' petition is full and we do not believe that plaintiffs can add to it.' Most of the opinion (and the same is true of the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals and of the briefs of the parties in that Court and in this Court) was devoted to a discussion of the cause of action for redemption attempted to be alleged by respondents. And this Court, after discussing at length the question or questions raised by those allegations, fully made in the petition and constituting most of the petition, expressed the conclusion above quoted that those allegations did not state a cause of action, and that it was not necessary to determine whether the cause of action, that is the cause of action for redemption, was or could have been adjudicated in the Federal litigation.

Near the beginning of the opinion the purposes of respondents', the Atwood', suit and the relief sought are thus stated:

'(1) an adjudication that the oil and gas lease on that portion of the ranch partitioned to them is a mortgage, and for redemption; (2) cancellation of the oil and gas lease 'because extending 18 1/2 years and longer beyond the end of a limited ten-year trust form;' (3) reformation; (4) an...

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  • City of Dallas v. Stewart, 09–0257.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Texas
    • 1 Julio 2011
    ...of identical issues of fact or law which were actually litigated and essential to the prior judgment”); Humble Oil & Ref. Co. v. Fisher, 152 Tex. 29, 253 S.W.2d 656, 661 (1952) (holding that even errors in a previous decision do not “detract from or lessen the conclusive and binding effect ......
  • Ex parte Hovermale, 04-82-00017-CV
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    ...is only erroneous and not beyond the power of the court to enter, cannot be collaterally attacked, citing Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Fisher, 152 Tex. 29, 253 S.W.2d 656 (1952) and Clayton v. Hurt, 88 Tex. 595, 32 S.W. 876 (1895), nevertheless concludes that preemption under McCarty and Hi......
  • City of Dallas v. Dixon
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    • 13 Marzo 1963
    ...139-140, 150-151, Prohibition, §§ 2, 3, 11, although the true function of the writ is often overlooked. See Humble Oil & Refinding Co. v. Fisher, 152 Tex. 29, 253 S.W.2d 656. However, incorrect identity of the writ sought is of no significance. Relators seek from the Court of Civil Appeals ......
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    • 17 Agosto 1967
    ...even that the validity of the judgment may be tried in the trial court. That argument cannot be sustained." Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Fisher, 152 Tex. 29, 253 S.W.2d 656, 661. "This court may err in its directions to an inferior court, but, however erroneous the directions given may be, ......
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