Hunt v. Ramsey
| Decision Date | 06 April 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 5379,5379 |
| Parties | Stevie Jackson HUNT et al., Appellants, v. G. E. RAMSEY, Jr., et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Robert L. Sonfield, Houston, for appellants.
Henry Russell, Pecos, Harry G. Dippel; Frank L. Merrill, Fort Worth, Durward Goolsby, Midland, for appellees.
This is a suit filed by plaintiffs in the District Court of Reeves County, Texas, seeking to set aside a judgment theretofore rendered by such court on May 14, 1952, in Cause No. 4650, styled G. E. Ramsey, et al., v. J. H. Rawls, et al., insofar as such judgment affects them and the lot and farm claimed by them.
Plaintiffs have called their action a 'bill of review', and have stood upon their Second Amended Original Petition and Bill of Review. The defendants in this suit, G. E. Ramsey, Jr. (Ramsey, Sr., having died), and Republic National Bank of Dallas, Trustee, and defendant, Continental Oil Company, filed pleas in abatement, and the oil company added special exceptions pointing out the absence of indispensable parties, or, alternatively, necessary and proper parties. The trial court sustained the pleas in abatement and exceptions, and this appeal results therefrom.
Plaintiffs call their action a petition and bill of review, and the same is filed by Stevie Jackson Hunt and Minerva Jackson Moye, heirs of S. W. Jackson, deceased. They seek to set aside the judgment obtained in the prior suit by the Ramseys (which was a trespass to try title suit), and allege that citation by publication was wrongfully issued and was issued upon false allegations and without diligent inquiry; that the testimony in such case on the question of limitation was false, and that the acts of the plaintiffs in said case were a fraudulent conspiracy, having as its purpose the deprivation of the plaintiffs of their right to present their defense. The defendants here answer, saying that if this is a direct attack on the prior judgment, then all parties to such judgment are necessary parties to this suit, and if this is a collateral attack, then the plaintiffs cannot go behind the record and the recitations of the judgment itself. For these reasons, defendants maintain, then, that the trial court was correct in granting the pleas in abatement and exceptions. The prior judgment had many defendants who are not joined in this suit.
We believe the judgment of the trial court must be sustained as this suit, in our opinion, must be classed as either a collateral attack or an unsuccessful direct attack on a judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction. There is no question but what the District Court of Reeves County, where the judgment was rendered, was such a court, as the land involved lay within the confines of Reeves County.
First of all, it must be noted and continually borne in mind during the processes of considering this matter that the judgment attacked is a judgment obtained by the plaintiffs against all of the named defendants, for title and possession of all of the land involved. The land involved was a former townsite, or development area, consisting of lots and small farm plots which had been sold and peddled to a great number of buyers, who had apparently abandoned their purchases. This, therefore, is not a suit to set aside a judgment directed by one party against another party, but the bill of review here attempts to pick out one of many, many defendants and revoke the judgment as far as he is concerned. While this would certainly be much more economical for the plaintiffs here, we cannot find sufficient authority to warrant such piece-meal attack in this manner, of a judgment apparently valid on its face.
Among other things, plaintiffs in this suit allege, in their petition, that the testimony in the prior suit with regard to the question of limitation was false, and that the acts of the plaintiffs in such cause were a fraudulent conspiracy. It would seem evident that these assertions, standing in the plaintiffs' petition here, if proven (and of course they had to have a meritorious defense), could very likely affect the title of other defendants, or the plaintiffs themselves, in the former suit. It would therefore be unwise and inequitable to permit this proof to be made in this manner here, thereby casting in doubt the merits of the entire judgment, with a consequent cloud on the title therein obtained, and casting...
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Cooper v. Commonwealth Title of Ariz.
...attack upon a former judgment all parties to the former action must be before the court in the latter. See, e.g., Hunt v. Ramsey, 334 S.W.2d 549 (Tex.Civ.App.1960); Perdue v. Miller, 64 S.W.2d 1002 (Tex.Civ.App.1933); 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 408a, pp. 805--806. The reason for such a rule is c......
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Hunt v. Ramsey
...abatement and exceptions to this action, and the plaintiffs' suit was dismissed. That action was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 334 S.W.2d 549. In the 1952 trespass to try title action, the Ramseys alleged that they had acquired title by limitation to approximately nine and one-hal......