Wilson v. Wachsmann, No. 03-04-00504-CV (TX 5/3/2006)
| Decision Date | 03 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-04-00504-CV.,03-04-00504-CV. |
| Parties | RAY F. WILSON AND FAYE D. WILSON, Appellants, v. CLARENCE WACHSMANN AND JOYCE WACHSMANN, Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court of Lee County, 335th Judicial District, No. 12,439, Honorable H. R. Towslee, Judge Presiding.
Affirmed.
Before Chief Justice LAW, Justices B. A. SMITH and PEMBERTON.
Appellants Ray F. Wilson and Faye D. Wilson bring this pro se appeal of the district court's judgment denying them any recovery against appellees Clarence Wachsmann and Joy1 Wachsmann on the Wilsons' claims for past-due farm rent, unpaid loans, and damage to land and awarding damages to the Wachsmanns on their counterclaims. In twenty-four issues,2 the Wilsons challenge the district court's rulings on various pretrial and posttrial motions. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the district court's judgment.
This appeal arises from a dispute over an alleged oral agreement concerning loans and farm rent. For many years, the Wachsmann and Wilson families had a sharecropping arrangement whereby the Wachsmanns would lease the Wilsons' farm land in Manheim; provide the seed, equipment, and labor to grow various crops; and split the proceeds from the crop with the Wilsons. The two families never memorialized these arrangements in writing but operated under oral agreements that renewed from year-to-year.
Until their deaths, Ray Wilson's father (Fred Wilson), and Ray Wilson's brother (Ural Wilson), oversaw the family's sharecropping arrangement with the Wachsmanns. Thereafter, Ray Wilson and his wife, Faye Wilson, began exclusive oversight of the arrangement. Disputes arose, and the Wilsons sued the Wachsmanns in justice of the peace court claiming that the Wachsmanns failed to repay a $5000 loan for farm expenses. The Wilsons went to trial under a second amended original petition that sought both eviction ("immediate possession of their property") and "$5,000 without pre-judgment interest but with post-judgment interest, as complete and full satisfaction of said debt owed." The justice court rendered a take-nothing judgment:
This the 25th day of March, 2003, came on to be tried in its regular order the above-styled and numbered cause, wherein RAY F. WILSON, FAYE D. WILSON, Plaintiff, and CLARENCE WACHSMANN, JOYCE WACHSMANN, Defendant, and came the parties in person and through their attorney and announced ready for trial, and neither party having demanded a jury, all matters in controversy, of fact and law, were submitted to the Court sitting without a jury; and the pleadings, evidence and argument of counsel having been heard by the Court, it is the opinion of the Court that the Plaintiff should take nothing by his suit; that the Defendant, go hence with his cost without delay and that execution issue in Defendant's behalf for his said costs.
The Wilsons did not perfect an appeal from this judgment.3
In a separate action in district court, the Wilsons sued the Wachsmanns for $21,173—which included the $5000 farm expense loan for which they had sought recovery in justice court. The Wachsmanns counterclaimed, seeking as an offset the damages they incurred from the Wilsons' breaching the crop lease agreement by attempting to evict them.
The Wachsmanns sought partial summary judgment on the basis that the Wilsons' claim regarding the $5000 farm expense loan was barred by res judicata. The district court granted the motion, ordering:
IT IS ORDERED that upon the trial of this cause the following facts are found to be established without the need of further proof:
Defendants Wachsmann are not liable to Plaintiffs Wilson for the $5,000.00 debt alleged by Plaintiffs to be due them from the Defendants.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that all other facts material to the claims and defense of the parties remain for trial.
The Wilsons subsequently filed a motion for rehearing of the partial summary judgment and a motion for sanctions against the Wachsmanns' counsel; the district court denied both. The court also granted the Wachsmanns' motion in limine to preclude either party from mentioning the $5000 farm expense loan. It also granted the Wachsmanns' motion to exclude the testimony of two of the Wilsons' witnesses whom they had failed to identify in response to the Wachsmanns' request for disclosure. Finally, the district court denied an instrument that the Wilsons termed "special exceptions," which purported to challenge the Wachsmanns' answer with evidence of additional facts.
The claims were tried to a jury, which rejected each of the Wilsons' claims for damages, found that the Wilsons breached the crop lease agreement, and awarded damages to the Wachsmanns of $4687. The district court rendered judgment in accordance with the jury verdict, awarding the Wachsmanns $4687 in damages, plus costs and attorney's fees, see Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 38.001(8) (West 1997), and ordering that the Wilsons take nothing on their claims. After judgment, the Wilsons filed a motion for new trial, a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and a motion to supplement their answers to the Wachsmanns' disclosure requests. The district court denied each of these motions.
On appeal, the Wilsons contend that the district court erred by (1) denying their special exceptions; (2) granting a motion for partial summary judgment while denying their motion for rehearing, motion for sanctions, and their bills of exception; (3) excluding two of their trial witnesses; (4) failing to give a limiting instruction after the Wachsmanns' counsel violated the motion in limine; (5) denying their motion for new trial and motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict; and (6) denying their motion to supplement discovery.
Special exceptions
In their first set of issues, the Wilsons complain that the district court erred in denying their special exceptions. The Wilsons excepted to the portion of the Wachmanns' original answer that asked the district court to take judicial notice of the justice court's take-nothing judgment. They also excepted to the Wachsmanns' counterclaim for breach of the lease agreement, which alleged that the Wilsons' damages should be offset by the expenses that the Wachsmanns incurred as a result of the Wilsons' eviction proceedings. We note that the Wachsmanns' original answer, which is the subject of the Wilsons' special exceptions, is omitted from the appellate record.
We review the district court's ruling on special exceptions for an abuse of discretion. Wayne Duddlesten, Inc. v. Highland Ins. Co., 110 S.W.3d 85, 96 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, pet. denied) (). An abuse of discretion will be found if the district court fails to correctly analyze or apply the law. See Walker v. Packer, 827 S.W.2d 833, 840 (Tex. 1992).
In their special exceptions, the Wilsons argued that the court should not take judicial notice of the justice court's judgment because it conflicted with an oral agreement that the justice court would only rule on the issue of possession. They also argued that the allegations in the Wachsmanns' counterclaim for offset were insufficient to give them fair notice.4
The Wilsons' special exceptions were improper. Special exceptions must confine themselves to addressing matters shown on the face of the opposing pleading and must not inject factual allegations not appearing in the pleading against which the exception was raised. Brown v. Hawes, 764 S.W.2d 855, 856 (Tex. App.-Austin 1989, no writ); see also Tex. R. Civ. P. 91. When a special exception "goes outside the record and sets up a matter which requires proof, it is by its very nature a 'speaking demurrer,' which is not a valid pleading under our rules." Sherman v. Triton Energy Corp., 124 S.W.3d 272, 282-83 (Tex. App.-Dallas 2003, pet. denied) (). The Wilsons' purported special exceptions were not confined to matters on the face of the Wachsmanns' answer but relied upon extrinsic facts: an alleged agreement between the parties that conflicted with the justice court's judgment and excerpts of deposition testimony disputing the merits of the Wachsmanns' counterclaim.5
Because the Wilsons' exceptions relied upon facts extrinsic to the Wachsmanns' original answer, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying their special exceptions. We overrule the Wilsons' first issue.
Partial summary judgment
In their second set of issues, the Wilsons contend that the district court erred in granting a partial summary judgment that the Wilsons' claim regarding the $5000 farm expense loan was barred by res judicata. The Wilsons also challenge the court's denial of motions they later filed seeking rehearing of the partial summary judgment and sanctions,6 each of which sought to revisit matters addressed in the partial summary judgment.
The district court's ruling on a summary judgment is a question of law that we review de novo. Valence Operating Co. v. Dorsett, 164 S.W.3d 656, 661 (Tex. 2005). The party moving for summary judgment bears the burden of showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Knott, 128 S.W.3d 211, 215-16 (Tex. 2003). The Wilsons argue that the district court's order "gives rise to an erroneous judgment on all grounds" because it does not specify the grounds on which the court relied. In fact, Texas law is squarely the opposite: because the district court's order does not specify the grounds for its ruling, we must affirm the summary judgment if any of the theories presented to it and preserved for appellate review are meritorious. Id. at 216.
Under the doctrine of res...
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