Bowen v. Grayum
Bowen v. Grayum
Opinion of the Court
This suit was instituted in the district court of Scurry county by John Y. Bowen and others, as citizens and taxpayers of Scurry county, against the county judge and four commissioners, and against three persons who purchased the county’s four leagues of school land from Scurry county through its commissioners’ court, The plaintiffs below sought to enjoin the commissioners’ court and said purchasers from making further orders in connection with the sale of the land, and from taking any other steps toward perfecting the title to the lands in said purchasers, and to cancel the contract of sale that had been made between the parties. The defendant Scurry county answered by general demurrer and special exceptions, and also pleaded over against the plaintiffs for 6 per cent, interest on $5,800 from February 12, 1912, as damages to the county school fund, by reason of the institution of this suit and delaying the payment to Scurry county of said sum as interest due on the sale of said lands, of which sum the county had been deprived by reason of the institution of said suit by plaintiffs. The defendants Grayum, Clark, and Harris, as purchasers of said land, answered by general demurrer and numerous special exceptions, and, in addition thereto, pleaded over against the.plaintiff and Scurry county for a removal of the cloud cast upon their title by reason of the filing of this suit and a lis pendens which the plaintiffs had caused to be placed on the records of Lubbock county, to which county Hockley and Cochran counties, in which the land lies, are attached for judicial purposes, and prayed for removal of said cloud from said land. The general demurrers of the purchasers and the county to plaintiffs’ petition were sustained as well as the special exceptions presented to same, and, plaintiffs electing to abide by their pleading and refusing to amend, the trial court dismissed the plaintiffs’ cause of action, but did not, as shown by the record before us, in any way dispose of the cross-action filed by Scurry county against the plaintiffs or the cross-action and issue *473 raised thereby in the pleadings of the purchasers against the plaintiffs and Scurry county, wherein the purchasers sought to have the cloud removed from their title by reason of this suit and filing of the lis pen-dens in Lubbock county.
The Supreme Court of this state in disposing of the case of Dixon v. Sanderson, 6 S. W. 831, wherein this question was involved, uses this language: “Upon examining the record in this case, we find that no final judgment was rendered in the court below. There is an order in the transcript sustaining a demurrer and the plaintiff’s amended petition, and a recital that to this ruling the plaintiff excepted, and gave notice of an appeal to the Supreme Court. But this did not necessarily dispose of the case. No recovery was had for either party, and what the adjudication of the court was as to the subject-matter of the suit does not appear. For want of a final judgment the appeal must be dismissed, and it is so ordered.” The reason for the rule that an appeal will not lie except from a final judgment is that if a party were allowed to appeal from any and every interlocutory judgment during the pendency of a suit, and thus suspend the progress of the same during the pendency of the appeal, which would be an easy matter for a party unwilling to have a suit tried, it would result in an indefinite postponement of a termination to .the litigation in the trial court. Kennedy v. Morrison, 31 Tex. 207.
Being of the opinion that this court is-without jurisdiction to dispose of this cause upon its merits, because no final judgment has been rendered in the court below, ap-pellees’ motion wil be sustained, and the appeal will be dismissed from the docket of this court at the costs of the appellees; and it is so ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- BOWEN Et Al. v. GRAYUM Et Al.
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published