Switzer v. Smith
| Decision Date | 30 November 1927 |
| Docket Number | (No. 838 - 4902.) |
| Citation | 300 S.W. 31 |
| Parties | SWITZER et ux. v. SMITH. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Suit by W. E. Smith against George Switzer and wife, in which a cross-bill was filed. Judgment for defendants was reversed and rendered, and defendants' cross-bill dismissed, by the Court of Civil Appeals (293 S. W. 850), and defendants bring error. Judgment of Court of Civil Appeals affirmed.
See, also, 270 S. W. 879.
Ben V. King, of Eagle Pass, for plaintiffs in error.
David E. Hume, of Eagle Pass, for defendant in error.
This suit was instituted in the district court of Maverick county to foreclose a judgment lien founded upon the registration of an abstract of judgment from the county court of Bexar county for civil cases. The defense was an attack upon the validity of the judgment. The trial court sustained the contention of defendants that the judgment was void, and refused to enforce the lien. Upon appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals for the Fourth District reversed the judgment, and rendered judgment enforcing the lien.
Article 4656 of Vernon's Annotated Texas Statutes provides:
"Writs of injunction granted to stay proceedings in a suit, or execution on a judgment, shall be returnable to and tried in the court where such suit is pending, or such judgment was rendered. * * *"
This is more than a mere venue statute; it has to do with jurisdiction. Its purpose is not the protection of the citizen in his ordinary right to be sued in the county of his domicile, but rather it is a law of comity, for the protection of the dignity of our courts. Orderly procedure and proper respect for the courts will require that such attacks upon their judgments should be made in the court rendering such judgment, rather than in other courts indiscriminately. An attack upon a judgment, to be direct, therefore, must be brought in the court where such judgment was rendered.
The defendants' answer, after setting up the supposed vice rendering void the judgment, prayed:
"Wherefore these defendants affirmatively ask that this cross-action be taken as a direct attack on said judgment of February 17, 1915, and proceedings thereunder, and pray the court that upon hearing hereof a writ of injunction issue herein, restraining the plaintiff, W. E. Smith, from having execution issued on said judgment and from the collection and enforcement of said illegal judgment."
This undoubtedly attempted to raise the questions of the validity and regularity of the judgment of the county court of Bexar county for civil cases. In Seligson v. Collins, 64 Tex. 314, construing this statute, the Supreme Court say:
"In such case the statute is imperative — the writ of injunction must be returned to the court from which the order of sale issued."
In Leachman v. Capps, 89 Tex. 690, 36 S. W. 250, Chief Justice Gaines held the statute to be jurisdictional. The Chief Justice there made a clear distinction between attacks involving the validity or regularity of the judgment, as contradistinguished from one attacking the validity of the process, as such, through which the execution of the judgment is attempted. Lester v. Gatewood (Tex. Civ. App.) 166 S. W. 389, and Brown v. Fleming (Tex. Civ. App.) 178 S. W. 964, also treat the matter as jurisdictional. So that, if the judgment be not void, the district court of Maverick county had no jurisdiction to interfere with its enforcement.
But it is contended that the judgment was void, and its invalidity could be asserted in the proceeding in Maverick county. Of course, if the judgment was void, rather than voidable, its validity could be questioned in any court in any proceeding whenever a right was asserted under it. But let us see if the judgment is void. The vice for which invalidity is asserted consists in this: The judgment was alleged to be...
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