City of New Braunfels v. City of San Antonio

• Decision Date: 12 May 1948
• Docket Number: No. 9713.,9713.
• Citation: 212 S.W.2d 817
• Parties: CITY OF NEW BRAUNFELS v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 817

212 S.W.2d 817

CITY OF NEW BRAUNFELS v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO et al.

No. 9713.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Austin.

May 12, 1948.

Rehearing Denied June 23, 1948.

Appeal from District Court, Twenty-second Judicial District, Comal County; K. K. Woodley, Judge.

Suit by the City of New Braunfels against the City of San Antonio and others to cancel or have declared void all instruments by which the city of San Antonio acquired title to an electric generating plant located within the corporate limits of the city of New Braunfels, wherein the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority filed a cross-action. From an adverse judgment the plaintiff appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

Schleyer & Bartram, H. A. Triesch and Frank B. Voigt, all of New Braunfels, and Martin, Moore & Brewster and Leo Brewster, all of Fort Worth, for appellant.

T. D. Cobbs, Jr., City Atty., of San Antonio, and W. L. Matthews, of San Antonio, for City of San Antonio.

W. S. Gideon, of Austin, for Lower Colorado River Authority.

E. M. Cape, of San Marcos, Tarlton Morrow of Houston and Alvin J. Wirtz, of Austin, for Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.

Chapman & Cutler of Chicago, Ill., Seeligson, Cox, Patterson & Grant Trueheart, McMillan & Russell, all of San Antonio, and C. W. Trueheart, of San Antonio, for appellees Harris Trust & Savings Bank and Harold Eckhart.

HUGHES, Justice.

The principal litigants in this suit are the City of New Braunfels, appellant, who was the sole plaintiff in the trial court, and appellees, City of San Antonio, The San Antonio Public Service Company, hereafter designated SAPSCo., The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, and The Lower Colorado River Authority, the latter two being hereafter designated GBRA and LCRA, respectively. Other appellees will be named only as required.

The primary purpose of this suit is to cancel, or have declared void, all instruments by which the City of San Antonio acquired title to an electric generating plant located within the corporate limits of New Braunfels.

Appellant's pleadings contained a count in trespass to try title, but as to this feature of the case it is not here contended that appellant has any character of title to the properties involved.

Further allegations of appellant, in substance, are:

Prior to October 24, 1942, the electric generating plant, known as the Comal Power Plant, was located within its corporate limits and had been operated by the SAPS Co. for many years under a franchise originally issued by New Braunfels to Comal Power Company, a predecessor of SAPS Co. The electric utility properties of the SAPSCo. within the corporate limits of New Braunfels included not only the Comal Power Plant itself, located upon a forty-acre tract adjoining Landa Park, but also large switchyards, high voltage transmission lines, emanating from the plant and going in all directions across the public streets, and grounds and other territory of the city to points outside its limits, as well as other apparatus necessary to the generation and transmission of electricity and claims to the waters of the Comal Springs and Comal River and to a fifteen-foot strip from the margin of the water along each bank of said river from the plant site up the stream through Landa Park to the Comal Springs. On October 24, 1942, San Antonio purported to acquire all of the utility properties of the SAPSCo., except certain local distribution systems in cities other than San Antonio, and leased the portions of such utility properties in New Braunfels to the GBRA and LCRA for operation by them under the terms of such lease. The particular acts on the part of San Antonio and its subordinates, complained of in the petition, were the attempt by San Antonio to acquire ownership of the electric utility properties within the corporate limits of New Braunfels, the operation thereof by San Antonio, either by itself or through its lessees, the extension by San Antonio of its electric lines into the corporate limits of New Braunfels, the use of the streets, alleys, and public grounds of New Braunfels, by San Antonio and its lessees, for the maintenance of electric poles, high voltage wires, and other electric apparatus, and the assertion of rights in and claims to the springs, waters, and a part of the bed and banks, of the Comal River within the corporate limits of New Braunfels.

The validity of these actions, together with all instruments executed and other things done in connection therewith, insofar as they related to these particular utility properties within the corporate limits of New Braunfels, was questioned on each of the following grounds:

1. San Antonio was expressly prohibited by the Constitution and statutes of this State from invading New Braunfels, a home rule city, for such purposes, and thereby encroaching upon and violating New Braunfels' right of local self-government, guaranteed it under the Home Rule Amendment, Vernon's Ann.St.Const. Art. 11, § 5, and statutes of this State.

2. San Antonio not only lacked authority under the law to go into the corporate limits of another home rule city for such purposes, but was expressly prohibited from so doing.

3. Such acts were contrary to the public policy of this State.

4. Such acts destroyed vested property rights of New Braunfels under which the plant was being operated, without compensation and due process of law, in violation of the Constitution of the United States and of Texas.

Appellant sought the following relief:

1. Decreeing void and illegal all claims of San Antonio, and of all other parties to this suit claiming by, through, or under that City, of any interest in or to any of the utility properties located within the corporate limits of New Braunfels, and in and to the Comal Springs, Comal River, its waters and banks, and decreeing void and illegal all acts and instruments attempting to create such claims insofar as they related to the properties in New Braunfels.

2. Granting an injunction restraining San Antonio and its subordinate claimants from doing any of the acts complained of, and from interfering with the exercise by New Braunfels of its governmental and municipal functions in connection with the Comal Plant and incident properties, including the Comal River, Comal Springs, and waters thereof within the limits of New Braunfels, and requiring the removal of all electrical equipment and apparatus from the streets.

3. Impressing upon the Comal Plant and its incident properties within the corporate limits of New Braunfels a trust arising by operation of law, for the use and benefit of New Braunfels.

4. Appointing a receiver with authority to take charge of and operate the Comal Plant and all incident properties claimed by San Antonio and its subordinates within the limits of New Braunfels, and to sell said utility properties at receiver's sale to New Braunfels, or in the alternative, to some purchaser not disqualified by law to operate the same within said city under proper franchise therefrom, the proceeds of such sale to be paid into the registry of the court and distributed under its direction.

5. Requiring an accounting to New Braunfels of all monies that had come into the hands of San Antonio or its subordinate claimants through the operation of the Comal Plant.

6. Granting general legal and equitable relief.

As to appellees' answer it is only necessary to state that estoppel, the nature of which will be later discussed, was specially pleaded.

Trial without a jury resulted in a judgment that appellant take nothing by its suit and that GBRA recover on its cross-action the title to and possession of all properties described in appellant's petition, this recovery being without prejudice to the rights, titles and claims of all other appellees.

There are no findings of fact or conclusions of law.

The facts are undisputed and were, for the most part, before the Supreme Court in the case of Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority v. City of San Antonio, 145 Tex. 611, 200 S.W.2d 989, to which opinion reference is here made.

We will, therefore, be brief in reviewing the background and history of this litigation and state only such facts as are necessary for disposition of the issues before us.

The land upon which the power plant is now located was originally owned by the Landa family of Comal County. As far back as the Civil War, the Landas had used the property for the purpose of developing water power, and conducting milling operations. About 1900, Harry Landa had improved and increased the water power development by the construction of an artificial channel which collected the waters of Comal Springs, located on his property, and conducted them to a dam where water wheels were situated.

In 1925, E. H. Kifer, general manager of SAPSCo. made extensive investigations for the purpose of determining the best location of a new generating plant needed by the company to supply its electric system and customers. The Landa site was selected because of its proximity to the City of San Antonio, the abundance of cool water and other economic factors.

On August 17, 1925, the Landas conveyed to the Comal Power Company, for a cash consideration of $600,000, portions of their Comal County properties, including the tract of land upon which the Comal Power Plant was built and is now located, certain railroad trackage, the old power plant, the electric distribution system serving the City of New Braunfels, riparian and water rights along and in the Comal River, together with the lands underlying Comal Springs and the Comal River, the artificial channel and a strip fifteen feet wide from the water's edge along the Spring, River and Channel; the Landas reserving certain easements and water rights.

The remainder of the Landa property was acquired by the City of New Braunfels by deed expressly providing that it was subject to the terms and easements contained in the Landa conveyance to the Comal Power Company.

The Comal Power was...