Worsham v. Stevens

Citations

• 66 Tex. 89
• 17 S.W. 404
• 1886 Tex. LEXIS 450

Syllabus

<p>1. Contracts—remedies—Regulaiton by legislature—Act of march 18, 1885—A note made in 1884, and payable in April, 1885, was in the usual form, except that it authorized any attorney to confess judgment for the sum due on the note and ten per cent, attorney’s fees, if the money should not be paid. A petition was filed in December, 1885, and an attorney claiming to act under the power conferred by the note, appeared for the maker and confessed judgment. Held:</p> <p>(1) The value of the maker’s promise to pay money was not in legal contemplation, injuriously affected by the destruction of the remedy contracted for, by the act of March 18, 1885.</p> <p>(2) The contract for the remedy did not come within the class made inviolable by the organic law; it involved no property interest, and its violation could cause no damage. The process of courts is not a subject of inviolable contract.</p> <p>(3) The parties to stipulations respecting the mode of proceeding must be held to contemplate changes in the mode, and they contract subject to the right of the legislature to make changes. (Authorities reviewed.)</p> <p>(4.) The agreement for an attorney to confess judgment for ten per cent, attorney’s fees, was a promise to pay such fees, recoverable by due course of law, to which the plaintiff was remitted by the act of 1885.</p>