Payne v. Laughlin, 17937
| Decision Date | 28 September 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 17937,17937 |
| Parties | Patience Ann PAYNE, Appellant, v. Sam W. LAUGHLIN, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Wm. Andress, Jr., Andress & Woodgate, Dallas, for appellant.
Gene L. McCoy, Corbet F. Bryant, Jr., Carrington, Coleman, Sloman, Johnson & Blumenthal, Dallas, for appellee.
Appellant sued appellee, her former husband, for damages, alleging that after their divorce he kept her under surveillance, interfered with her privacy and her business relationships, and fomented and incited litigation against her. When she rested, the court on motion withdrew the case from the jury and rendered judgment that she take nothing. We affirm.
Accepting as true all of the evidence introduced by appellant, indulging all reasonable inferences therefrom in her favor, and discarding all evidence to the contrary, we are unable to find in this record any evidence to support any right of recovery based upon any of appellant's complaints.
Her chief complaint was that after the divorce appellee saw a car bearing an Oklahoma license plate in her driveway, and took it upon himself to investigate and ascertain that it was registered in the name of Henry Fink, of Lawton, Oklahoma after which he relayed this information to Fink's wife Gladys, after which Mrs. Gladys Fink sued appellant for damages for alienating her husband's affections. Appellant incurred and paid substantial sums in defense of that suit, and in about eighteen months it was dismissed. She contends appellee was shown to have been guilty of the offense of barratry, for which he is liable to her in damages. However, her evidence falls far short of even making a prima facie case of violation of the barratry statute.
Tex.Pen.Code Ann. art. 430 (1952) defines the offense of barratry as willfully instigating, maintaining, exciting, prosecuting or encouraging litigation for profit or with intent to distress or harass the defendant. There was no evidence that appellee excited or encouraged Mrs. Gladys Fink to sue appellant, or that he received or expected to receive any profit out of the alienation suit, or that he had any intent to distress or harass appellant by exciting or encouraging the filing of that suit.
Appellant testified that she had discovered appellee trespassing on her home property on two occasions, and that she had found an electrical device in the attic of her garage which she assumed was evidence that her telephone had been tapped. She also testified that an explosion had destroyed her mailbox and that appellee seemed to know immediately that she had reported it to the postal authorities by telephone. She argues...
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