The case concerns venue in a civil damages suit arising from a highway truck accident in Wilson County, where plaintiffs sought to keep the case there under Exception 9 of Article 1995 by showing that defendants committed crimes through violations of traffic statutes requiring lights on parked vehicles and proper placement of flares. Following Supreme Court instructions that causal connection between the crime and injury is a legal question determined from the pleadings rather than a fact to be proven at the venue hearing, the Court of Civil Appeals addressed whether any crime was actually committed. It held that Section 9-a of Article 827a of the Penal Code had been repealed by the later comprehensive traffic statute Article 6701d, so that alleged violation could not support venue, while Article 6701d itself functions as both a civil and criminal regulation of highway traffic.
This case involves a dispute over whether real estate brokers Harrison-Wilson-Pearson were entitled to a commission for the sale of property owned by Air Conditioning, Inc. The brokers had been given exclusive short-term listings to sell the property to a specific buyer at decreasing prices but failed to make the final offer or disclose certain loan details as instructed. After the owners terminated the brokers' employment and used another intermediary to complete the sale at $105,000, the trial court and appeals court ruled as a matter of law that the brokers were the procuring cause and entitled to recover. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the evidence raised disputed fact issues regarding whether the brokers' efforts were the procuring cause while their authority remained in effect, whether they acted diligently, and whether the termination was wrongful, which required submission to a jury rather than an instructed verdict.
The case involved a mother's petition for a writ of habeas corpus after she was held in contempt by the Second District Court of Cherokee County for failing to comply with a child custody order from a 1950 divorce decree that granted the father summer custody of the two minor children. The Texas Supreme Court decided to discharge the mother, ruling that the contempt order could not be sustained. The core reasoning was that the mother had filed a new independent suit in Taylor County (later transferred to Jefferson County) alleging changed conditions since the original decree, both parents had relocated from Cherokee County, and the new court of competent jurisdiction therefore had authority over the custody matters, depriving the original court of jurisdiction to enforce its prior order through contempt proceedings until the new suit was resolved.
This case concerned a Texas corporation's suit to recover franchise taxes and penalties it paid under protest after the Secretary of State added the amount of its reserve for bad debts to its reported taxable capital for the years 1933 through 1949. The trial court ruled for the corporation and awarded it $408.75 plus interest, but the Court of Civil Appeals reversed and rendered judgment that the corporation take nothing. The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the appeals court and affirmed the trial court's judgment, holding that the cash value of accounts receivable for franchise-tax purposes is the amount that can reasonably be realized in cash and that the corporation's reserve, which reflected actual experience with uncollectible accounts without creating a double deduction, properly reduced taxable capital under the applicable statute.
Gordon Wear sued Government Personnel Mutual Life Insurance Company to recover override commissions on insurance policies solicited by another agent, based on three related contracts from 1946, plus attorney's fees. The trial court awarded Wear over $73,000 after disregarding some jury findings, but the Court of Civil Appeals reformed the commission amount downward and the Texas Supreme Court further limited recovery. The Supreme Court held that the supplemental override agreement was terminated effective January 1, 1948, via oral notice and waiver of the written notice requirement in the related agent contract, so Wear was entitled only to a small sum of commissions on specified renewals rather than the larger amount claimed. It reversed the award of attorney's fees, finding no basis for them under the contracts or applicable law, which was not to be applied retrospectively.
This case concerned the authority of the Taylor County Board of School Trustees to rescind its October 23, 1950, order consenting to the transfer of territory from South Taylor County Independent School District to Winters Independent School District before the Runnels County Board had acted on the proposal. South Taylor County ISD sued to invalidate a subsequent State Board of Education order recognizing the transfer, after the Taylor County Board had rescinded its consent on October 28 and the Runnels County Board had purported to approve the transfer on November 1. The trial court and court of civil appeals upheld the transfer, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Taylor County Board's rescission was valid because the transfer proceedings were not yet final. The court reasoned that administrative bodies generally retain power to rescind non-final actions and that the governing statute (Article 2742-f) was intended to allow flexibility in adjusting school district boundaries rather than to create an inflexible process.