Light v. Transport Ins. Co., 16934

• Decision Date: 14 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 16934,16934
• Citation: 419 S.W.2d 223
• Parties: M. Russ LIGHT, d/b/a American Insurance Agency, Appellant, v. TRANSPORT INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Appellees. . Dallas
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 223

419 S.W.2d 223

M. Russ LIGHT, d/b/a American Insurance Agency, Appellant, v. TRANSPORT INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Appellees.

No. 16934.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas Dallas.

July 14, 1967.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 29, 1967.

James H. Holmes, III, of Burford, Ryburn & Ford, L. W. Anderson, of Harris, Anderson, Henley, Shields & Rhodes, Dallas, for appellant.

Chilton Bryan, Houston, for appellees.

BATEMAN, Justice.

This appeal involves only the question of venue as to certain defendants. The appellant M. Russ Light, a local recording insurance agent doing business in Dallas, Texas, brought this suit in the district court of Dallas County against Transport Insurance Company, a Texas corporation residing in Dallas County, herein called 'Transport,' and Excess House, a partnership, and its partners, all of whom reside in Harris County, claiming damages for wrongful interference with the insurance business relations existing between appellant and H. S. Anderson Trucking Company. Liability is asserted on two grounds: (1) that the defendants conspired to entice appellant's said customer away from him by offering it insurance protection for a much smaller premium, which they could do only by violating certain orders of the State Board of Insurance and the Insurance Code of Texas, and (2) that such acts of the defendants constituted unfair competition and a combination in restraint of trade in violation of Vernon's Ann.Civ.St., Art. 7426.

The defendants, Excess House and its individual partners, filed a plea of privilege to be sued in Harris County, which was controverted on the grounds that the district court of Dallas County had venue of the entire case under subdivisions 4 and 9 of Art. 1995, V.A.C.S. The court, sitting without a jury, sustained the plea of privilege and in the order found specifically that appellant had failed to prove a cause of action against any of the defendants. We affirm.

Subdivision 4 of Art. 1995, V.A.C.S., provides that if two or more defendants reside in different counties the suit may be brought in any county where one of the defendants resides. Under this exception to the general rule that a defendant is entitled to be sued in the county of his residence, it was incumbent on appellant Light to allege and prove that he had a cause of action against Transport and to allege a joint cause of action against both defendants or causes of action against them so intimately connected that the two should be joined 'under the rule intended to avoid a multiplicity of suits'. Stockyards National Bank v. Maples, 127 Tex. 633, 95 S.W.2d 1300 (1936); Atlas Roofing Co. v. Hall, 150 Tex. 611, 245 S.W.2d 477 (1952).

Appellant contends, not only that his proof brought the case within subdivision 4, but that it also showed that both defendants jointly conspired to violate the Insurance Code as well as the anti-trust laws of Texas, which illegal acts constituted a 'crime, offense or trespass' committed in Dallas County within the purview of subdivision 9, of Art. 1995, V.A.C.S., thus authorizing venue in Dallas County. To bring the case within this exception, it was necessary for appellant to plead and prove that appellees committed a crime, offense or trespass in Dallas County proximately causing, or contributing to cause, the loss to appellant of the business in question. Compton v. Elliott, 126 Tex. 232, 88 S.W.2d 91 (1935).

Appellant had for several years written the comprehensive general liability and automobile liability insurance of H. S. Anderson Trucking Company, a resident of Jefferson County, Texas, in Bituminous Casualty Company. The limits of liability under the Bituminous policy were $100,000 for each person and $300,000 each accident, as respects bodily injuries, and $25,000 each accident as respects property damage; such limits being hereafter shown for convenience as '$100,000/$300,000/$25,000.'

There was much evidence of numerous conferences and correspondence resulting in a new program of insurance for H. S. Anderson Trucking Company. The new plan embodied primary coverage in a policy issued by Transport which had a 'combined single limit' of $10,000, supplemented by 'excess'...