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53 Tex. 221

Brown v. Pfouts

Texas Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1880

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1880-06-15

<p>1. Reconvention — Practice.—As a general rule when a defendant reconvenes, the plaintiff will not permitted to take a voluntary nonsuit.</p> <p>2. Same. — A motion to set aside a voluntary nonsuit filed by a defendant’s attorney, who had filed before nonsuit a plea in reconvention, should not prevail when no sufficient reason is shown in the motion why they were not present and did not object when the nonsuit was applied for, and where the motion fails to show that there was merit in the plea in re convention.1</p>

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently November 1925

2 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-06-15

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Bonner, Associate Justice.

¶1As a general rule of practice, where the defendant, as in this case, reconvenes, the plaintiff will not be permitted to take a voluntary nonsuit, to the prejudice of the right of the defendant to an adjudication upon the matters contained in his plea in reconvention. Egery v. Power, 5 Tex., 501; Bradford v. Hamilton, 7 Tex., 57; R S., art. 1260.

¶2All the cases, however, to which our attention has been called, are those in which the objection was taken at the time the nonsuit was asked.

¶3It does not appear but that the nonsuit as to Brown in this case was taken when the same was regularly called for trial, and when he was presumed to have been present in person or by counsel, and no objection was then made to the action of the court.

¶4Two days subsequently, motion was made by two of several attorneys representing Brown, to set aside this judgment; but no sufficient reason is shown why they were not present and did not object at the time, and no allegation is made in the motion that there was merit in the plea in reconvention.

¶5Under the rules of practice in analogous cases, as in motions to set aside judgments by default, the motion under consider*224ation was, on these grounds, defective. Foster v. Martin, 20 Tex., 118; Cook v. Steel, 42 Tex., 56.

¶6As there was no trial or judgment upon the merits of the respective titles of the parties, there would not arise from the action of the court below any prejudice to Brown as a question of law, and none is shown as a question of fact, by operation of the statute of limitations or otherwise. The judgment of the court below is accordingly affirmed.

¶7Affirmed.

¶8[Opinion delivered June 15, 1880.]

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