Permian Oil Co. v. Smith

• Decision Date: 07 April 1937
• Docket Number: No. 6351.,Motions No. 11502.,Motions No. 11501.,6351.
• Citation: 107 S.W.2d 564
• Parties: PERMIAN OIL CO. v. SMITH et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

107 S.W.2d 564

PERMIAN OIL CO. v. SMITH et al.

Motions No. 11501.

Motions No. 11502.

No. 6351.

Supreme Court of Texas.

April 7, 1937.

Dissenting Opinion July 6, 1937.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Eighth Supreme Judicial District.

On motions for rehearing.

Motions overruled.

For former opinion, see 73 S.W.(2d) 490.

J. B. Dibrell, Sr., of Seguin, J. B. Dibrell, Jr., Dibrell & Starnes, and Critz & Woodward, all of Coleman, John Sayles, of Abilene, and Hart Johnson, of Fort Stockton, for plaintiff in error.

Chas. Gibbs, Gibbs & Lewis, Robt. T. Neill, Harris, Harris & Sedberry, J. W. Stovall, Smith & Neill, H. O. Williams, and James Cornell, all of San Angelo, Phillips, Trammell, Chizum, Estes & Edwards, Burney Braly, and Hiner & Pannill, all of Fort Worth, Black & Graves and W. A. Keeling, all of Austin, Thompson, Knight, Baker & Harris, of Dallas, Baker, Botts, Andrews & Wharton, Rex G. Baker, and R. H. Whilden, all of Houston, John Rogers, Chas. A. Holden, and Maxey, Holden & Holleman, all of Tulsa, Okl., Brian Montague, of Del Rio, W. C. Jackson, of Fort Stockton, F. H. DeGroat, of Duluth, Minn., and Thompson, Mitchell, Thompson & Young and Lloyd L. Adams, all of St. Louis, Mo., for defendants in error.

Walter L. Kimmel, of Tulsa, Okl., amicus curiæ.

ELWOOD FOUTS, Special Justice.

This case was decided by the opinion appearing in (Tex.Sup.) 73 S.W.(2d) 490. Motions for rehearing were duly filed. Before action was taken on these motions the personnel of the court was changed, Associate Justice SHARP succeeding Judge GREENWOOD, and Associate Justice CRITZ replacing Judge PIERSON, deceased. Judge CRITZ certified his disqualification, resulting in the appointment of ELWOOD FOUTS, of Houston, Tex., as Special Associate Justice, who duly qualified. The court as thus composed requested oral argument on the motions due to the fact that Chief Justice CURETON alone heard argument as a member of the court when the case was originally disposed of. The questions decided by this opinion on the motions for rehearing embrace only a portion of those discussed and disposed of by the former opinion which is overruled where it does not conform to the law as here announced and as thus modified stands approved.

The parties will be designated here as they were in the trial court. Briefly summarized the facts are:

This suit was filed June 21, 1928, by Permian Oil Company against the defendants, seeking to recover the land described and the value of the oil produced therefrom. Plaintiff established title in John Monroe and then offered in evidence the pleadings and judgment rendered in cause No. 854, John Monroe v. T. F. Hickox, in the district court of Pecos county, Tex. That suit was filed August 22, 1910, and disposed of March 4, 1911, by a take nothing judgment entered against the plaintiff. The petition there was in statutory form of trespass to try title describing sections 103 and 104, Texas Central Railway, as the land sued for. The answer was a plea of not guilty. The present suit involves said section 103. Apparently some of the defendants claim title under John Monroe. There was filed in the former case the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. Plaintiff, which holds under Hickox, asserts that it has Monroe's title by virtue of the former judgment. It is evident from the record that some of the defendants herein claim to have acquired their several titles at a time when that judgment was not properly recorded, as required by statute. Plaintiff made no proof that such defendants were not bona fide purchasers for value or that they bought with notice. The judgment in Monroe v. Hickox and its supporting pleadings was admitted in evidence over the objection of defendants on the ground that such proof was not made and on the further ground that the judgment was either void on the face of the record or else if properly construed did not dispose of the issue of title. Defendants renewed their objections in a motion to strike the evidence, in which they prevailed after they themselves offered in evidence, over the objection of the plaintiff, the entire record out of which emanated the judgment of Monroe v. Hickox. Their motion resulted in a peremptory instruction against the plaintiff.

Objection was made by the plaintiff that the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law in Monroe v. Hickox were not a part of the judgment record. We do not agree with this contention.

The phrases "judgment roll," "judgment record," and "face of the record" are terms used interchangeably in our decisions. They grow out of the common law where in the earliest cases on officer of courts of record preserved on a scroll of parchment a record of the issues which the contestants agreed to litigate. At that time their pleadings were oral. This roll later embraced the written pleadings, the court's charge to the jury, the jury's verdict, the court's final judgment, and other similar matters constituting a part of the proceedings of the trial. One of the purposes of the roll was to enable the proper application of the rule of res adjudicata, the record being preserved among other reasons in order to show what issues had been disposed of and the parties to be bound thereby. When inquiry as to what constitutes this record arises, it must be remembered that ordinarily one of the purposes of the inquiry is to properly apply the rule of res adjudicata. Every part of the trial proceedings preserved in courts of record under direction of the court for the purpose of its record constitutes the judgment roll.

The defendants offered the record of the former case for the purpose of establishing either that the judgment entered was void on the face of the record, or if not void, then construed in the light of the judgment roll actually disposed of only one issue, that of boundary, and therefore, they contend, did not operate as a monument of title; or that it constituted conclusive evidence that the sole issue determined was that sections 103 and 104, as between the parties and their privies, either could not be located on the ground or else were in total conflict with senior surveys 34 and 35, G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co. block 194, and because of which they contend that plaintiff, the successor in title of Hickox, is estopped to now maintain that section 103 can be located on the ground free of conflict. These contentions are again strongly urged by the defendants in their motion for rehearing. Because of the doubts which were raised in the mind of the court by the argument that these contentions were supported by fundamental law which had been lost sight of in too narrowly adhering to precedent, we have re-examined the whole field of law involved.

The principle of res adjudicata is founded in public policy and is as old as English jurisprudence. Fundamentally its purpose is to expedite justice by putting an end to litigation; and to preserve the sanctity of the judgments of the courts by making them immune from collateral attack. Once a court has exercised its functions of decision on an issue over which it has jurisdiction, and that decision becomes final, the parties thereto and their privies cannot escape its binding effect. Lacking this anchorage of finality a judicial system would be little more than a rule of fiat.

It has been said that the rule finds its application in two classes of judgments issuing out of courts having jurisdiction. One class is encountered where in the first case out of which the judgment issues, and in the second suit where the judgment is offered in bar, the parties are the same, the cause of action is the same, the capacity in which the parties act is the same, and the res or things disposed of are the same. Such a judgment, if unambiguous, as a general rule is treated as an absolute bar to retrial of the same cause of action on the theory that it has been merged in the judgment. A judgment of this type usually permits of no inquiry into the balance of the record from which it emanates, except in the case of certain well recognized exceptions. Where such a judgment is ambiguous, the judgment roll, and if necessary extrinsic evidence, is admissible, not to contradict the judgment, but only to aid in its construction. The other type is encountered where the parties to a subsequent suit seek to relitigate an issue which was disposed of by final judgment in a former suit to which they were parties, although the cause of action may have involved other issues. In the latter instance it has been said the parties and their privies are estopped to try again such issue disposed of by the former judgment and the entire record in the first case is admissible in evidence in order to determine whether or not the issue involved in the second case was actually disposed of in the first, without reference to the question of ambiguity.

The cases as a matter of fact do not so completely separate themselves into two such sharply defined classifications, but graduate from the one into the other, and hence the explanation for the use by courts of much very general and conflicting language. It must be borne in mind that the purpose of the law remains constant to prevent the failure of justice as the result of permitting the retrial between the same parties or their privies of a cause of action or of an issue which has been finally disposed of.

The judgment in cause No. 854, unless affected by ambiguity leading to the construction sought by defendants, clearly comes within the first classification. It is necessary, therefore, to ascertain whether that judgment is ambiguous. This involves a number of problems. We find no reason to hold it ambiguous simply because it is necessary to refer to the pleadings. It is true the description of the land and the nature of the cause of action do not appear in the face of the judgment. However, this is supplied by the direct reference to the plaintiff's pleadings appearing in the face...