Pan Am. Petroleum Corp. v. Texas Pac. Coal & Oil Co., 5346

• Decision Date: 28 January 1959
• Docket Number: No. 5346,5346
• Citation: 320 S.W.2d 915
• Parties: PAN AMERICAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION et al., Appellants, v. TEXAS PACIFIC COAL & OIL COMPANY et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 915

320 S.W.2d 915

PAN AMERICAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION et al., Appellants, v. TEXAS PACIFIC COAL & OIL COMPANY et al., Appellees.

No. 5346.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, El Paso.

Jan. 28, 1959.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 18, 1959.

Lon Sailers, Turner, Rodgers, Winn, Scurlock & Terry, Dallas, Frank Ashby, Midland, for appellants.

Luther Hudson, Joe Bruce Cunningham, Hudson, Keltner & Sarsgard, Fort Worth, Stubbeman, McRae, Sealy & Laughlin, Hamilton E. McRae, Midland, for appellees.

FRASER, Justice.

We are confronted here with a motion to dismiss an appeal from the 83rd District Court, which granted a summary judgment in favor of appellees, as plaintiffs, against certain defendants who, it was alleged, were claiming some sort of an interest in the leaseholds held by the plaintiffs.

This law suit was filed against a number of defendants; plaintiffs seeking to adjudicate the rights of one group and seeking to interplead of the other group in the way of members of the other group in the way of royalties. The trial court below, after hearings, granted a summary judgment against those defendants that plaintiffs alleged were claiming some right or interest in the leaseholds held by appellees.

Appellees have here filed a motion to dismiss appellants' appeal from the summary judgment granted in favor of plaintiffs as against the defendants affected by such judgment. As grounds for their motion, they maintain that such summary judgment is interlocutory in nature in that it does not dispose of all parties or all issues to the law suit.

Appellants maintain that the law suit is clearly severable in that the group left out of the summary judgment consists only of those people to whom plaintiffs say they owe certain monies, and that the group affected by the summary judgment consists solely of defendants claiming some right or title or interest to the leaseholds themselves. Appellants maintain that the action of the trial court in granting a summary judgment acted as a severance of the law suit and was, therefore, final in its nature and scope and, as such, was appealable.

Rule 166-A of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a summary judgment may be granted in favor of the movant upon all or any part of the law suit where plaintiff is seeking a declaratory judgment. This rule has been followed and upheld many times.

It is, of course, elementary that a judgment to be appealable must be final as to all parties and issues. We have, here, the law suit still pending on the docket of the trial court and untried as to a great many defendants, and so the question is now posed: In a case of this nature, where plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment, did the action of the trial court in granting summary judgment against those defendants who were claiming some right or title or interest to the leasehold thereby sever the law suit so as to make the action of the trial court final, and therefore appealable?

We think this question must be answered in the negative. It has been said that such a judgment is...