The jurisdictional structure of the Texas court system is unimaginably abstruse.

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS

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No. 03-0831

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Yusuf Sultan,

d/b/a U.S. Carpet and Floors, Petitioner,

v.

Savio Matthew, Respondent

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On Petition for Review from the

Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas

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Justice Hecht, joined by Justice Wainwright and Justice Medina, dissenting.


The jurisdictional structure of the Texas court system is unimaginably abstruse. Take for example this case, which raises what one might think would be a relatively simple question: Can a $4,000 judgment for damage caused by home flooring installation be appealed to the court of appeals? Here is the Court’s answer: yes, if the judgment was rendered by a district court, or by a county court Footnote or a statutory county court Footnote in a case that originated in or was transferred Footnote to that court from a justice court or small claims court, or was appealed from a justice court in a case that originated there or was transferred there from the small claims court, but no, if the judgment was rendered by county court or a statutory county court in a case appealed from a small claims court. One might wonder why the answer should be so complicated, and why the court of appeals’ jurisdiction should depend on where, among several trial courts all with jurisdiction, the case was first filed and whether it was transferred. Why, indeed.

In all fairness, the Court is trying to make sense of a half-century-old ambiguous statute that is part of a jurisdictional scheme that has gone from elaborate, when the statute was enacted, to Byzantine. Today’s complex answer to a simple question does not much worsen matters that are already in terrible shape. But we are seldom presented with the opportunity to give a jurisdictional statute a reasonable construction that results in more uniformity and simplicity (even if only slightly more), and given that opportunity in this case, I would seize it. Since 1892, the court of civil appeals and its successor, the court of appeals, have had jurisdiction over any civil case involving more than $100. Footnote I would hold that jurisdiction does not depend on where the first judgment in the case was rendered — whether in the small claims court, the justice court, the statutory county court, the county court, or the district court. (To keep things simple, I would leave statutory probate courts for another day. Footnote ) Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

As I see it, the principal error in the Court’s analysis is that it does not pay proper attention to the context in which the statutory language we have to construe was written and the jurisdictional scheme of which it is a part. The Small Claims Court Act was enacted in 1953 and has since been recodified and amended. Footnote In 1953, four trial courts had jurisdiction over claims for money damages: the district court, with a minimum jurisdictional limit of $500; Footnote the county court in each county, with jurisdiction of claims involving between $200 and $1,000; Footnote the additional statutory county courts (18 in 13 counties), with the same monetary limits as the county courts; and the justice court, with exclusive jurisdiction of claims up to $200. Footnote The Act created a fifth court, the small claims court, but no new judges; each justice of the peace in addition to being judge of the justice court was also made judge of the small claims court. Footnote Notwithstanding the justice court’s constitutionally “exclusive” jurisdiction of claims up to $200, Footnote the small claims court was given jurisdiction of wage claims up to $100 and other monetary claims up to $50. Footnote Thus, the small claims court and justice court had concurrent jurisdiction over the smallest claims, and the same justice of the peace heard them, whether sitting as judge of the justice court or as judge of the small claims court. Neither court’s jurisdiction overlapped that of the statutory county court, the county court, or the district court.

The purpose of the Act, according to the Legislature, was to address “[t]he fact that many citizens of the State of Texas are now in effect denied justice because of the present expense and delay of litigation when their claims involve small sums of money”, Footnote but it is doubtful whether the Act did much to facilitate the adjudication of small claims already being handled by the same justices of the peace in the justice courts. Footnote The Act prescribed procedures that are less extensive than the rules applicable in justice courts but not appreciably simpler in actual practice. Footnote For example, the Act permits an action to be commenced by filing a simple, sworn statement, Footnote but does not permit oral pleadings, which are standard in justice court. Footnote Discovery is permitted in justice court, Footnote and while it was not expressly permitted at first in small claims courts, it is now. Footnote Perhaps the most significant difference between the two courts was the Act’s admonition, inapplicable in justice court, that:

In every case before the Small Claims Court, it shall be the duty of the judge to develop all of the facts in the particular case. In the exercise of this duty, the judge may propound any question of any witness or party to the suit or upon his own motion may summon any party to appear as witness in the suit as, in the discretion of the judge, appears necessary to effect a correct judgment and speedily dispose of such case. Footnote

This is in contrast to cases holding that, although a trial judge may examine a witness during a bench trial, a trial judge should not examine witnesses who are testifying before a jury. Footnote A jury trial may be demanded in either court. Footnote

The jurisdictional structure of the trial courts has changed markedly since 1953. The Constitution has been amended to omit a minimum monetary limit on the district court’s jurisdiction, Footnote and whether any such limit remains is an unresolved question. Footnote The Constitution has also been amended to omit monetary limits on the county court’s jurisdiction. Footnote Limits now prescribed by statute are generally from $200 up to $5,000, Footnote but at least one county court has no civil jurisdiction at all. Footnote Monetary jurisdictional limits on statutory county courts are generally from $500 to $100,000, Footnote but they vary widely from county to county, and many such courts have no monetary limits. The justice court retains “exclusive” jurisdiction over claims up to $200, Footnote but the upper monetary limit of its jurisdiction has been increased by statute to $5,000, exclusive of interest. Footnote The small claims court also has jurisdiction of all monetary claims up to $5,000, exclusive of costs. Footnote For many individual courts, statutes limit or extend jurisdiction based on the subject matter of cases. Also, county court judges, statutory county judges, justices of the peace as judges of the justice courts, and justices of the peace as judges of the small claims courts may, within their discretion, transfer cases to one another if the transferred case is within the transferee court’s jurisdiction, and sit for one another on any case over which the sitting judge would have jurisdiction in his or her own court. Footnote I cannot begin to describe in detail the jurisdiction of Texas trial courts. My point here is merely to show how monetary limits and the jurisdictional boundaries among trial courts have changed in the past half century.

It is in this full historical context that the provision here in question must be construed. The Small Claims Act permits an appeal to the county court or statutory county court from a “final judgment” in a case involving more than $20, exclusive of costs. Footnote The appeal is actually a trial de novo in the county court or statutory county court. Footnote Section 13 of the Act, now recodified as section 28.035(d) of the Government Code, then states that the judgment on appeal is “final”. Footnote As the Court notes, “the term ‘final,’ as applied to judgments, has more than one meaning.” Footnote In section 13 of the Act, “final” could mean one of three things: (1) not interlocutory, and therefore subject to appeal — the way the word is used a few sentences earlier in permitting an appeal from a “final judgment”; (2) not subject to appeal at all; or (3) no longer subject to nullification by trial de novo, like the small claims court judgment, but appealable like any other judgment. I agree with the Court that the first meaning makes section 13 a false statement because it is possible for judgments of the county court or county court at law to be interlocutory. For example, a plaintiff might sue two defendants and take a default judgment against one, which would be interlocutory until it was severed or the entire case was adjudicated. The statement that a judgment on appeal is “final” cannot mean that a judgment on appeal is not interlocutory.

The Court adopts the second possible meaning of “final”, that the judgment of the county court or statutory county court after trial de novo cannot be appealed to the court of appeals. For several reasons, I think the Court’s construction is implausible.

First: If the 1953 Legislature intended section 13 to mean that a small claims court case could never reach the court of civil appeals, then it stated nothing that was not already true. The maximum jurisdictional limit of the small claims court in 1953 was $100, and it was that high only for wage claims. The limit for other monetary claims was $50. The minimum jurisdictional limit of the court of civil appeals was $100. Footnote Thus, no case within the small claims court’s jurisdiction could ever reach the court of civil appeals unless the amount in controversy increased during the trial de novo appeal in the county court or statutory county court, and there was at least some authority that seemed to prohibit such a change in the case. Footnote Thus, under the law as it existed in 1953, no case within the small claims court’s jurisdiction could ever be appealed past the county court or statutory county court, and there was no reason for the Legislature to reiterate that fact in the Act.

Second: As the Court says, the Legislature’s clear intent in creating the small claims courts was “to provide an affordable and expeditious procedure for litigating claims involving relatively small amounts of money” Footnote — up to $100 in 1953. Consistent with that intent, the Act did not allow appeal in cases involving up to $20, Footnote and it might well have allowed only one appeal in cases involving between $20 and $100. But it would have been entirely inconsistent for the Legislature to have created a court to handle small claims expeditiously and at the same time set up a structure that, when the court’s jurisdiction was increased, would make the small claims court the only court in the State whose judgments on significant claims could not be reviewed by the court of civil appeals. The Legislature surely foresaw that the small claims court’s monetary jurisdictional limits might be increased over the years, as they were in 1963, Footnote 1983, Footnote 1987, Footnote 1989, Footnote and 1991. Footnote The current limit of $5,000 is no longer a “relatively small amount[] of money”, at least in the same sense $100 was in 1953. (The U.S. Department of Labor reports that with inflation, $100 in 1953 is now the equivalent of $744.57 in 2005. Footnote ) Even if the 1953 Legislature did not contemplate that a successor body would someday consider a claim for $5,000 within the jurisdiction of the small claims court, there is also no reason to think that it intended for judgments on much larger claims, in whatever court they might be rendered, not to be appealed to the court of appeals.

Third: Indeed, the 1981 Legislature expressed the contrary intent, re-enacting what was then article 2249 of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes Annotated, which stated in pertinent part:

An appeal or Writ of Error may be taken to the Court of Appeals from every final judgment of the district court in civil cases, and from every final judgment in the county court in civil cases of which the county court has original jurisdiction, and from every final judgment of the county court in civil cases in which the court has appellate jurisdiction, where the judgment or amount in controversy exceeds one hundred dollars exclusive of interest and costs. Footnote

Section 13 of the 1953 Act was never amended or re-enacted. It and article 2249 were recodified in 1985 as sections 28.053 and section 22.220(a) of the Texas Government Code, respectively. Footnote Article 2249, the later-enacted provision, controls over section 13. Footnote More importantly, however, the re-enactment of article 2249 shows that the Legislature never intended an exception to the court of civil appeals’ jurisdiction for cases originating in small claims court.

Fourth: On several occasions the Legislature has expressly prohibited appeals from statutory county courts to the court of appeals in cases in which the amount in controversy does not exceed $100, exclusive of interest and costs, implying that an appeal can be taken in any case in which a greater amount is in controversy. For example, section 25.1902 of the Texas Government Code, pertaining to the county court at law in Potter County, states:

(c)An appeal or writ of error may not be taken to the court of appeals from a final judgment of a county court at law if:



(1)the judgment or amount in controversy does not exceed $100, exclusive of interest and costs; and



(2)the case is a civil case over which the court has appellate or original concurrent jurisdiction with the justice court. Footnote

Similar provisions apply to the statutory county courts in Cameron County, Footnote Grayson County, Footnote and Lubbock County. Footnote Although the statutes pertaining to the three latter counties were enacted prior to 1953, Footnote the statute pertaining to Potter County was enacted in 1955, Footnote after the Small Claims Court Act. In 1985, when statutes pertinent to the jurisdiction of constitutional county courts were recodified in Chapter 26 of the Government Code, Footnote the revision was no less explicit. Section 26.042, inter alia, provides generally that a constitutional county court has limited concurrent jurisdiction with the justice courts, Footnote and that:

(c) If under Subchapter E [“Provisions Relating to Particular Counties” Footnote ] a county court has original concurrent jurisdiction with the justice courts in all civil matters in which the justice courts have jurisdiction, an appeal or writ of error may not be taken to the court of appeals from a final judgment of the county court in a civil case in which:



(1) the county court has appellate or original concurrent jurisdiction with the justice courts; and



(2) the judgment or amount in controversy does not exceed $100, exclusive of interest and costs. Footnote

As the Revisor’s Note explains, subsection (c) was “derived from similar provisions found in each of the local laws codified in Subchapter E in which the county court is given full concurrent civil jurisdiction with the justice courts.” Footnote These statutes show that the Legislature’s intent before and after passing the Act was that the court of civil appeals would have jurisdiction in cases involving more than $100.

Moreover, other statutes clearly contemplate that a “final judgment” marks when a case can be appealed, in the absence of language expressly providing otherwise, rather than when a judgment cannot be appealed. Section 24.007 of the Property Code also contemplates that express language is necessary to bar appeal of an otherwise appealable “final judgment” of a county court:

A final judgment of a county court in an eviction suit may not be appealed on the issue of possession unless the premises in question are being used for residential purposes only. Footnote

Section 821.025 of the Health and Safety Code is also express in limiting the availability of an appeal. Footnote Statutes barring or limiting review in this Court are no less explicit. Section 22.225 (b) of the Government Code, provides that a judgment of a court of appeals is “conclusive on the law and facts, and a petition for review is not allowed to the supreme court,” in certain cases, unless a further exception applies. Footnote

To reiterate, if the Court has correctly construed section 13 of the Act, then the following is true of a case involving $5,000:

jurisdiction in court of appeals?

filed in the district court

yes

filed in the county court or statutory county court, and decided by the judge of that court, another such court, or a justice of the peace



yes

filed in the justice court, and decided by a county court or statutory county court judge, or by a justice of the peace



yes

filed in the small claims court, transferred to the justice court, county court or statutory county court, and decided by any judge or justice of the peace eligible to sit



yes

filed in the small claims court, and decided by any county court or statutory county court judge, or by a justice of the peace



no

No reason can be offered for the one anomaly. Nor is the would-be appellant’s loss, due to an incorrect but unreviewable judgment, necessarily limited to $ 5,000, as one of the cases cited by the Court illustrates. In Oropeza v. Valdez, Footnote defendant Oropeza sought review of a county court judgment for $5,600, on the ground that this award was void insofar as it exceeded both the jurisdiction of the justice court and the $4,950 that plaintiff Valdez had sought and obtained in the justice court. Footnote The San Antonio Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal for want of jurisdiction, citing section 28.053 (d) of the Government Code, but suggested that there might be other legal remedies available. Footnote Oropeza took up this vague invitation, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief in the district court, asserting that the county court at law's judgment was void because it awarded monetary relief in excess of the jurisdictional limit of the small claims court. Footnote The district court concluded that the county court judgment was not void, and the court of appeals, noting that the district court could have concluded that the increased damages were properly awarded because they had accrued because of the passage of time, affirmed. Footnote Thus, even if the damages awarded had exceeded the jurisdiction of the justice court – or the county court – by a far more substantial amount, a litigant would be left without judicial review. Footnote

The third possible meaning of “final” in section 13 of the Small Claims Court Act — that the judgment of the county court or statutory county court after de novo trial is, unlike the small claims court judgment, final and appealable like any other judgment — avoids anomalous consequences, preserves the limit on appeal for small claims of up to $100, and is a reasonable construction of the statute. A judgment of the small claims court, subject to “appeal” by trial de novo, is not “final” in the same sense as other judgments. Footnote As Chief Justice Calvert wrote for the Court in Southern Canal Co. v. State Bd. of Water Eng’rs:

In Lone Star Gas Co. v. State, 137 Tex. 279, 153 S.W.2d 681, 692, we said: “Power to try a case de novo vests a court with full power to determine the issues and rights of all parties involved, and to try the case as if the suit had been filed originally in that court.” The sine qua non of a de novo trial as that term is used to describe a retrial of a matter or controversy theretofore tried by another tribunal is the nullification of the judgment or order of the first tribunal and a retrial of the issues on which the judgment or order was founded. When jurisdiction of the second tribunal attaches, the judgment or order of the first tribunal is not merely suspended, but is nullified. Examples of that type of trial are found in our statutes applicable to appeals from Justice Court judgments and from awards made by the Industrial Accident Board. Footnote

In the Small Claims Court Act, the Legislature had referred to a judgment of the small claims court as “final”, meaning subject to trial de novo, and may simply have wanted to emphasize for small claims litigants that the judgment after trial de novo was “final” in yet another sense of the word. This, in my view, is the most plausible construction of section 13, and certainly the least problematic.

For these reasons, I would hold that the court of appeals had jurisdiction of petitioner’s appeal and would reverse and remand to that court for consideration of the merits.





Nathan L. Hecht

Justice



Opinion delivered: November 18, 2005