City of Irving v. Dallas County Flood Control Dist.

• Decision Date: 21 October 1964
• Docket Number: No. A-10131,A-10131
• Parties: CITY OF IRVING, Texas, Petitioner, v. DALLAS COUNTY FLOOD CONTROL DISTRICT et al., Respondents.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 571

383 S.W.2d 571

CITY OF IRVING, Texas, Petitioner, v. DALLAS COUNTY FLOOD CONTROL DISTRICT et al., Respondents.

No. A-10131.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Oct. 21, 1964.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 25, 1964.

C. J. Taylor, Jr., City Atty., Irving, for petitioner.

H. P. Kucera, City Atty., Henry Wade, Dist. Atty., Scurry, Scurry & Hodges, Dallas, for respondents.

CALVERT, Chief Justice.

Suit was by Dallas County Flood Control District, City and County of Dallas Levee Improvement District, and Dallas County Levee Improvement District No. 5 against the City of Irving to enjoin the City from adopting Ordinance No. 833 or any ordinance annexing territory lying within the two Levee Improvement Districts, and to declare void any such ordinances theretofore adopted. The City of Dallas and the State of Texas intervened on the side of the plaintiffs, the State of Texas by petition in the nature of quo warranto filed by the District Attorney.

This appeal is from a judgment of the trial court granting a temporary injunction. By its terms the City of Irving is restrained and enjoined from taking any action to adopt Ordinances Nos. 833 and 834, or any other ordinance seeking to annex any portion of the Levee Improvement Districts, and from exercising any rights or powers over any territory within the districts. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. 377 S.W.2d 215. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals and modify and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The trial court's judgment is expressly rested on a conclusion that only cities qualifying under Art. 974e-8 ¹ have power and authority to annex territory included within the boundaries of levee improvement districts, and that Irving does not so qualify. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed for the same reason. We cannot accept the conclusion as a sound basis for the judgment. It is true that the statute is inapplicable to Irving, a city having a population of less than 425,000 according to the last preceding Federal Census, but we do not interpret it as constituting the source of a Home Rule city's power and authority to annex territory within the boundaries of levee improvement districts, or as a limitation on the power. Rather, we interpret Art. 974e-8 as regulating the legal relationship between cities having a population of more than 425,000 inhabitants and levee improvement districts when all or a part of the territory within such districts is annexed by cities of that size.

Art. 974e-8 was enacted in 1951. See Acts 52nd Leg., Reg. Ses., ch. 326, p. 561. As enacted, it applied, and still applies, to any city, including Home Rule cities, having a population in excess of four hundred twenty-five thousand (425,000) according to the last preceding Federal Census, which had theretofore annexed or might thereafter annex territory within a levee improvement district. The Article deals first with situations in which a city annexes all of the territory of a levee improvement district. In those situations, it provides that the district shall be abolished; that the city shall take over all of the properties and assets of the district, assume all of its debts and liabilities, and perform all of its functions; that the city shall assume all of the rights and obligations under existing contracts with flood control districts or other governmental agencies for operation of levees or other flood control works; and, finally, that the city shall have authority to refund outstanding bonded indebtedness of the district and provide a sinking fund therefor. The Article then deals with situations in which a city annexes only a part of the territory of a district. In those situations it provides that 'the governing authorities of such city and district shall be authorized to enter into contracts in regard to the division and allocation of duplicate and overlapping powers, functions and duties between such agencies, and in regard to the use, management, control, purchase, conveyance, assumption and disposition of the properties, assets, debts, liabilities and obligations of such district;' that the district may sell any utility system or other property owned by it to the city, or contract for its operation by the city; that in the absence of contract, the district shall have authority to continue to exercise the powers and functions and to discharge the duties and obligations imposed on it by law, unaffected by the annexation, in which event the city shall not be required to perform any drainage function in the district but may continue to perform all other authorized municipal functions which the district is not authorized to perform.

The whole tenor of the article indicates quite plainly that it was not intended as a source of power or authority to annex levee district territory, limited to a particular class of cities and excluding all others, but that it was intended to declare the legal status of the respective governmental units in overlapping territory when the overlap results from annexation of levee district territory by a city of more than 425,000 inhabitants, and to regulate their respective rights, duties, powers and obligations.

Respondents emphasize certain language in the emergency clause of the Act, which, to them, indicates legislative recognition that before its passage cities had no authority to annex territory of levee improvement districts. The language reads: 'The fact that there is not any law applicable to the annexation ² by cities of territory situated within levee improvement district(s) * * * creates an energency * * *.' Respondents interpret this language as though it read: 'The fact that there is not any law authorizing the annexation by cities of territory situated within levee improvement districts * * * creates an emergency * * *.' This is hardly a reasonable interpretation of the language when considered alone, and it is not at all reasonable when the language is considered in context with all parts of the Act.

If the Legislature had believed that there was at the time no law authorizing such annexations, and had intended that the Act confer the authority, surely express provision therefor would have been written into the body of the Act; but there are no words in the body of the Act expressly conferring annexation powers. Moreover, the emphasized language of the opening sentence of the Act makes its provisions applicable to cities which had annexed levee district territory prior to its enactment, and thus is tacit recognition by the Legislature that power to annex existed theretofore. That our interpretation of the Article is correct is also borne out by the caption of the Act, which reads:

'An Act prescribing the powers, duties and obligations of cities including Home Rule cities and those operating under General Laws or special charters having a population in excess of four hundred twenty-five thousand (425,000) inhabitants with reference to properties of levee improvement districts which have heretofore been annexed or which may hereafter be annexed by such cities; providing a savings clause; and declaring an emergency.'

When all parts of the Act are considered, it would require a strained interpretation of the language of the emergency clause to say that the Legislature intended thereby to make a finding that there then existed no lawful authority for Home Rule cities to annex territory situated within levee improvement districts. Moreover, any such finding would have been an erroneous finding.

The City of Irving is a Home Rule city. Home Rule cities derive their powers from Art. 11, § 5 of the Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St., which restrains their exercise of legislative powers only to the extent that 'no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.' The power to annex territory is a legislative power. Norris v. City of Waco, 57 Tex. 635, 641. There is no constitutional provision with which an ordinance annexing levee improvement district territory is inconsistent; and there is no general law with which it is inconsistent unless it be Art. 974e-8, and it is not inconsistent with that law as we have interpreted it. Moreover, subdivision 2 of Art. 1175 expressly confers power on a Home Rule city 'to fix the boundary limits of said city, to provide for the extension of said boundary limits and the annexation of additional territory lying adjacent to said city * * *.' ³ The provision expressly empowers Home Rule cities to annex any territory which is adjacent to them, State ex rel. Pan American Production Co. v. Texas City, 157 Tex. 450, 303 S.W.2d 780; State ex rel. Graves v. City of Sulphur Springs, Tex.Civ.App., 214 S.W.2d 663, writ refused, no reversible error, and which is not included within the limits of another incorporated city. City of Houston v. State, 142 Tex. 190, 176 S.W.2d 928; City of Houston v. City of Magnolia Park, 115 Tex. 101, 276 S.W. 685; City of Galena Park v. City of Houston, Tex.Civ.App., 133 S.W.2d 162, writ refused. We find nothing in the general law which removes levee district territory from the scope of the...