Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

25 Tex. 320

DeWalt v. Snow

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1860

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1860-07-01

Error from Polk. Tried below before the Hon. James M. Maxcy. Suit by Elvira Snow against K. B. DeWalt on two promissory notes amounting to $1913 50; petition filed September 15, 1858; process served on the 20th of the same month. Amended petition filed on the 8th of October, 1858, setting up a mortgage upon certain negroes, executed by the defendant to secure the payment of the notes, and praying for a decree to sell the property.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently June 2009

7 state decisions

20186018701880189019001910192019301940195019601970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Bell, J.

¶1In this case the .original petition made no mention of the mortgage executed to secure the payment of the promissory notes sued on. The mortgage was declared .upon in the amended petition .only. There was proper service of the original petition, but no service of the amended petition setting up the mortgage. In the case of Morrison v. Walker, 22 Tex., 18, it was held that “ in all cases where a demand for money upon a cause of action other than that set forth in the original petition, is made by an amendment, there must be service of the amendment, or the record must disclose the fact that the party to be .affected by the amendment was actually in court, in person or .by attorney, and might have had notice of such amendment.” So •in this case the amended petition setting up the mortgage was an .amendment of which the defendant ought to have had notice, because it was an additional demand against him, incident, in one sense, (it is true,) to the notes sued on, hut which entitled the plaintiff to a judgment against the defendant much more onerous .than that which was claimed by the original petition. There ought, therefore, to have been service of the amended petition.

¶2But the want of service is cured by a recital in the judgment which shows that the defendant was in court either in person or by attorney. The decree recites that the plaintiff agrees with the defendant to stay said order of sale and execution until the .first of February next.”

¶3The order of sale referred to in this part of the decree is the order for the sale .of the mortgaged property. In the case of Hutchinson and wife v. Owen, 20 Tex., 289, it was held that although the judgment was in the usual form of a judgment by default, a recital that the parties agreed to a stay of execution showed sufficiently that they were in court and recognized the proceedings. The case of Hutchinson v. Owen is precisely in *322point upon the question now before us, and that case has been ■recognized as establishing a correct rule in a later case which is not jet reported.

¶4The judgment entered by mistake on a former day of this term will be set aside, and the judgment of the District Court affirmed with damages.

¶5Affirmed with damages.

/25/tex/320 · .json · Public domain