McMurray v. McMurray

Citations

• 67 Tex. 665
• 4 S.W. 357
• 1887 Tex. LEXIS 943

Syllabus

<p>1. Equity—Judgment.—A court of equity will vacate a judgment or decree obtained by false testimony if it be shown that the false testimony was obtained through the procurement or connivance of the party to be benefited by it. The district courts of Texas exercising equity powers, will, by re-examining a case on its merits, grant relief when it is made to appear that a judgment was obtained by fraud, mistake or accident, and where there has been no want of diligence on the part of the person against whom the judgment was rendered.</p> <p>2. Cases Approved.—Laith v. McDonald, 7 Kansas, 254;, Bell v. Walnitzch, 39 Texas, 194; Burgess v. Levengood, 2 Jones's Equity, 460, and Peagram v. King, 2 Hawks, 297, approved.</p> <p>3. Divorce—Judgment—Equity,—Belief may be obtained against a judgment in a divorce case, when procured by the fraud of one of the parties, when the complaining party was prevented by such fraud from presenting the case fully at the time the decree was entered, if there was no want of diligence in the complainant; and such relief may be obtained in a new suit brought to correct the wrong, though begun after the close of the term at which the decree was rendered. The doctrine announced in Green v. Green, 2 Gray, 361, in regard to the exercise of such revisory powers in a suit brought after the close of the term at which the decree was entered, disapproved or qualified.</p> <p>4 Equity—Review.—The discovery after the term of a material fact, which being revealed would have resulted in a different judgment, and of which the injured party was unavoidably ignorant during the progress of the cause, and which such party could not know by reasonable diligence, constitutes a basis for equitable relief.</p> <p>6. Husband and Wife—Divorce—Review.—The husband being, under the laws of Texas, the custodian of the community interest of himself and wife, and invested with the power of its disposition, a fraudulent concealment of its extent and value from his wife, f