King v. Sapp

• Decision Date: 15 October 1886
• Citation: 2 S.W. 573
• Parties: KING and another <I>v.</I> SAPP.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 573

2 S.W. 573

KING and anotherv.

SAPP.

Supreme Court of Texas.

October 15, 1886.

Appeal from Nacogdoches county.

Action for the trial of the right to certain property levied upon by appellants as the property of R. Cole, and claimed by appellee. The property was taken from the possession of S. D. Sapp, who was agent for appellee. After the levy, the appellee replevied the goods, but they were again levied on by Le Gierse & Co. and Jake Davis & Co. In these last-named suits, Judge PERKINS, who sat as trial judge of this cause, represented appellee as counsel. The assignment of error held by the court to be too general to receive consideration is: "The court erred in overruling plaintiffs' motion for a new trial."

W. G. Ratcliffe, for appellant.

WILLIE, C. J.

The appellant contends that the district judge who tried this cause below was disqualified to hear and determine it, because he had been of counsel in causes between the defendant below and other plaintiffs, growing out of the same transaction as that from which the present suit originated, and involving the same questions that arose in it for decision. The judge had never been of counsel in this cause, and, if disqualified to sit therein, it must have been because the fact that he was at one time of counsel in the other cases gave him an interest in the present suit. The record does not disclose to us that the judge had any pecuniary interest in the event of the causes in which he had been employed. It does not inform us of any special facts which made the decision of this suit determine those cases, and ordinarily it would have no such effect. The decision of the district judge would not have been authority in the other suits, and, so far as we can see, would not have influenced in the slightest respect the judgments to be rendered in them. The law enumerates the only instances in which an interest not necessarily pecuniary will disqualify a district judge. These are where he has been of counsel in the cause, or where either of the parties may be connected with him by affinity or consanguinity within the third degree. Rev. St. art. 1090. By naming these special cases where the judge's feelings may be interested, though he may not gain or lose by the event of the suit, the law doubtless intended to limit all other cases of interest to such as should be of a pecuniary nature. The judge must, by the judgment in the case, gain or lose something, the value of which may be estimated. Of the influence which previously formed opinions upon questions involved in the case may have upon him, or the moral effect which his decision may have upon another judge...