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Rule 525. Oral Pleadings
TEXT
The pleadings shall be oral, except where otherwise specially provided; but a brief statement there of may be noted on the docket; provided that after a case has been appealed and is docketed in the county (or district) court all pleadings shall be reduced to writing.
Source: Art. 2388.
Change: Pleadings must be in writing or be reduced to writing after an appeal from the justice court.
Oct. 29, 1940, eff. Sept. 1, 1941. Repealed by order of April 15, 2013, eff. Aug. 31, 2013.
ADVISORY OPINIONS
(No. 27-a) Question: When a justice court case is appealed to the county court and the pleadings are reduced to writing under Rule 525, do the oral pleadings in the justice court go out of the case to the extent that they cannot be shown?
Answer: In the sense that the oral pleadings go out of the case for the purpose of trial and relief in the county court, we consider that the situation is one like that of amendment: The new pleading takes the place of the old and the old is no longer a part of the case. However, it may become important to show what the old pleadings were in connection with contentions under the statutes of limitation and with contentions that a new cause of action has been set up for the first time in the county court.
It should be added that while, therefore, the written pleadings in the county court are the pleadings upon which the case is tried, if the trial is upon certain proof that is variant from or has no support in the written pleadings, but no objection or the like is made to the variance or departure, Rule 67 applies and it will be as though there had been sufficient pleading. In this connection see also Rule 66 as to ready amendment if objection is made. Doubtless in a case of appeal from justice to county court the rules above cited would not go to the extent of allowing a new cause of action to be set up in the county court or recovered on in the county court; but with this qualification there should be little difficulty about variance or departure. And, of course, by the time of a special issue submission all pleadings relied upon in the submission would have to be in writing, under Rules 67, 277, and 279, unless the defect should be waived under Rule 274.
5 Tex. B.J. 287 (1942) reprinted in 8 Tex. B.J. 19 (1945).