City of Hurst v. City of Colleyville, s. 17434

• Decision Date: 12 October 1973
• Docket Number: 17435,Nos. 17434,s. 17434
• Citation: 501 S.W.2d 140
• Parties: CITY OF HURST, Appellant, v. CITY OF COLLEYVILLE et al., Appellees. CITY OF COLLEYVILLE et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF HURST et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 140

501 S.W.2d 140

CITY OF HURST, Appellant, v. CITY OF COLLEYVILLE et al., Appellees.

CITY OF COLLEYVILLE et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF HURST et al., Appellees.

Nos. 17434, 17435.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas,

Fort Worth.

Oct. 12, 1973.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 16, 1973.

Wilbur T. Knape, Bedford, for appellants City of Colleyville and others.

Saner, Jack, Sallinger & Nichols, Dallas, and George A. Staples, Jr., Hurst, for appellee, City of Hurst.

S. G. Johndroe, Jr., City Atty., and John F. Gray, Asst. City Atty ., Fort Worth, for appellee, City of Fort Worth.

OPINION

MASSEY, Chief Justice.

Appeals, separately docketed in this court because appeals of both City of Hurst and City of Colleyville were brought at different times, were from a single adverse judgment in a case brought in the trial court by the City of Hurst. By order of this court the cases are consolidated and reduced to the singular for purposes of appeal as it had been in the trial court.

We reverse the judgment and remand the case.

Though no issue of law determined in State ex Rel. Ratcliff v. City of Hurst, 458 S.W.2d 696 (Fort Worth, Tex.Civ.App., 1970, writ ref., n.r.e.) is controlling in the instant appeal, a cursory examination thereof furnishes the background of the dispute which culminated in the filing of the case in a District Court of Tarrant County, Texas. Because of the opinion in such cited case Hurst decided to and did file suit under the provisions of pertinent portion of Vernon's Ann.Tex.Civ.St. Art. 970a, Texas Municipal Annexation Act, to--within the particular area defined by its pleadings--have the court judicially apportion the area to which it was entitled to have exclusive extraterritorial jurisdiction.

To clarify; the propriety of any annexation is not involved in the suit, merely the designation of the boundaries of an area within which Hurst should have the exclusive right to initiate annexation procedure, and like designation for other interested municipalities.

Pertinent provisions of Art. 970a Sec. 3, subd. B provide, as follows: '. . . any city having an extraterritorial claim to such overlapping area shall have authority to file a plaintiff's petition in the district court of a judicial district, within which is located the largest city having an extraterritorial claim to such overlapped area, naming as parties defendant all cities having a claim to such overlapped area and praying that such overlapped area, to which it has mutual claim, Be apportioned among the cities concerned. In effecting such apportionment, the district court shall consider the population densities and paterns of growth, transportation, topography, and land utilization in the cities concerned and in the overlapped area. The territory so apportioned to a city shall be contiguous to the extraterritorial jurisdiction of such city. In the event the extraterritorial jurisdiction of a city is totally overlapped, the territory so apportioned to such city shall be contiguous to the corporate boundaries of such city. Such territory so apportioned shall be in a substantially compact shape. Such overlapped area shall be apportioned among such cities in the same ratio (to one decimal) as the respective populations of the cities concerned bear to one another, but in such apportionment no city shall receive less than one-tenth (1/10) of such overlapping area. . . .' (Emphasis supplied.)

Hurst's suit joined all appropriate municipalities. By disclaimer, etc., the real adversaries became Hurst and the City of Colleyville. The City of Fort Worth remained as a party to the suit, but all it wanted it obtained by the judgment provision, as follows, viz: 'IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that, although the claims by the City of Fort Worth of extraterritorial jurisdiction to a portion of the land in controversy under Ordinance No. 4075, duly and legally adopted on July 15, 1963, are herein recognized, no portion of such land shall be apportioned, under the provisions of Article 970a of Vernon's Revised Civil Statutes, to the City of Fort Worth.'

Joining the City of Colleyville in its contentions, including the contention that the land sought to be effected under the plea of Hurst was not subject to its extraterritorial claim, were B. B. Allgood and ten other interested property owners in the area.

Essentially the dispute is between Hurst and the City of Colleyville. There was a parcel of the area awarded to Hurst which was without the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Colleyville, but within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Hurst and the City of Fort Worth. Therefore this particular parcel, not specified as to metes and bounds by the judgment of the trial court, would not be subject of the persisting dispute between Hurst and Colleyville. There was another parcel of the area in question (in the northwest quarter) which was without the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Colleyville, but within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Hurst and the City of Fort Worth (claim of Hurst to which was not resisted by the City of Fort Worth), which was by the judgment of the trial court awarded to Colleyville. Neither do we find it specified as to metes and bounds by the judgment.

This last mentioned parcel of land was awarded to the City of Colleyville despite the fact that Hurst sought to obtain it and despite the fact that it lay within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Hurst and the City of Fort Worth but not that the Colleyville. As to the apportionment thereof to the City of Colleyville Fort Worth has made no objection, though Hurst objects. Such land parcel was 'contiguous' to land which fell within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Colleyville, and under one view of Art. 970a it might be said to have been such as was authorized to be apportioned to Colleyville by the judgment of the trial court. See language already copied from the statute, viz: '. . . The territory so apportioned to a city shall be contiguous to the extraterritorial jurisdiction of such city.'

By application of principles of statutory construction we hold that in this particular instance and sentence within the body of the statute--consideration given to the manifest intent of the Legislature evidenced from its concern with 'overlapping' of municipal extraterritorial jurisdiction--that it does Not in the apportionment contemplated by Art. 970a authorize a trial court to award to a municipality any extraterritorial jurisdiction over land which at the time of trial was located without and beyond the limits of its existent extraterritorial jurisdiction. Therefore the award made to the City of Colleyville constituted reversible error of which Hurst was entitled to complain.

The population of the City of Fort Worth was such that its extraterritorial jurisdiction included the majority of the area in question. The population of the City of Hurst was such that its extraterritorial jurisdiction included the whole of the area in question. The population of the City of Colleyville was less than 5,000, and as such, by Art. 970a, Sec. 3, subd. A(1), its extraterritorial jurisdiction was the contiguous unincorporated area, not a part of any other city, within one-half (1/2) mile of its corporate limits. By the limiting provisions of this section of the statute application of the limitations of distance to the ground of that area to which Hurst sought an apportionment demonstrated that the two land parcels previously mentioned lay without the extraterritorial jurisdiction of...