92 S.W.2d 493 | Tex. App. | 1936
This is an original proceeding for writ of prohibition.
Respondent Federal Crude Oil Company was appellant, and relators Yount-Lee Oil Company and B. E. Quinn were appellees, in the case of Federal Crude Oil Co. v. Yount-Lee Oil Co. et al., reviewed by this court and reported in
Subsequently, respondent Federal Crude Oil Company, as plaintiff, filed suit in the Sixtieth district court of Jefferson county against relators, as defendants, in the nature of a bill of review to set aside the judgment; the suit being styled Federal Crude Oil Co. v. Yount-Lee Oil Co. et al. and numbered 30802-A on the docket of the court. That proceeding is pending in the district court.
In the case now before us the relators seek a writ of prohibition against the respondent Federal Crude Oil Company and its attorneys of record, and Honorable R. L. Murray, judge of the Sixtieth district court of Jefferson county, restraining them from proceeding to trial or further prosecuting the suit for review. A copy of the bill of review is attached to relators' application. The bill is grounded upon a charge of fraud in the procurement of the judgment affirmed by this court as above mentioned. The specific allegation is, in substance, that a material witness for the defendant gave perjured testimony in support of the issues of limitation, which were found in favor of the Yount-Lee Oil Company by the jury.
Respondents contend that this court is without jurisdiction to issue the writ of prohibition in this case. This contention is overruled. The affirmance of the judgment of the trial court made it the judgment of this court. The respondent Federal Crude Oil Company seeks, by means of a bill of review, to relitigate the issues determined against it in the suit, and ultimately to divest the rights secured to the relators by that judgment. It is elementary that the power of a court to determine by its judgment the rights of the litigants includes the power to protect the *495
successful litigant in the enjoyment of the rights secured to him by the judgment. Hence, the prosecution of the suit for review would constitute an interference with the enforcement of the judgment of this court, which threatened invasion of its jurisdiction it has power by writ of prohibition or other appropriate writ to restrain. Houston Oil Co. of Texas v. Village Mills Co.,
Since the jurisdiction of this court has been properly invoked, it becomes our duty to consider whether the writ of prohibition should issue as prayed for. The determination of that question involves a consideration of the bill of review to determine whether it states a meritorious cause of action for setting aside the judgment under attack.
It is our conclusion that it does not, for two reasons:
First. As we have already stated, the gravamen of the bill is the alleged perjury of a witness upon a contested issue of fact. It is a rule well established by the decisions of the courts of our own and other jurisdictions that alleged perjury of a witness upon the trial, given upon a contested issue, which the adversary had opportunity to meet and refute, will not afford basis for setting aside the judgment on bill of review. United States v. Throckmorton,
As has been suggested in some of the cases, if a losing party may reopen a judgment and relitigate issues determined against him, because of alleged perjury of witnesses who testified upon the trial, the decree reopening the case, as well as the subsequent judgment therein entered, might be similarly attacked and set aside, and so on ad infinitum, so that all judgments of courts would be deprived of finality and continually open to attack. With reference to the mischief such a rule would work, Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the United States Supreme Court, in the Throckmorton Case, supra, observed pointedly: "That the mischief of retrying every case in which the judgment or decree rendered on false testimony, given by perjured witnesses, or on contracts or documents whose genuineness or validity was in issue, and which are *496 afterwards ascertained to be forged or fraudulent, would be greater, by reason of the endless nature of the strife, than any compensation arising from doing justice in individual cases."
The respondent Federal Crude Oil Company had its day in court on the limitation issue, and it cannot now reopen the matter because of an alleged perjury on the trial of the issue.
In the second place, the testimony complained of had to do only with the issue of limitation. An inspection of the opinion of this court on the appeal of the case [
Respondents suggest that there is no allegation or showing that the trial judge has attempted, or will attempt, to try the case on bill of review. We think it immaterial whether the trial judge is preparing to try the case or whether he will entertain the bill when the matter is reached. The filing and attempted prosecution of the case by the respondent Federal Crude Oil Company constitutes the real matter complained of by the relators.
It is ordered that the writ of prohibition issue.