Eagle Lake Independent School Dist. v. Hoyo

• Decision Date: 14 November 1917
• Docket Number: (No. 7447.)
• Citation: 199 S.W. 352
• Parties: EAGLE LAKE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. HOYO.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

199 S.W. 352

EAGLE LAKE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. v. HOYO.

(No. 7447.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Galveston.

November 14, 1917.

Rehearing Denied December 13, 1917.

Appeal from District Court, Colorado County; M. Kinnon, Judge.

Action by the Eagle Lake Independent School District against C. P. Hoyo. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and rendered.

A. A. Gregory, of Columbus, and J. M. Woods and A. J. Wirtz, both of Seguin, for appellant. W. L. Adkins, of Columbus, for appellee.

GRAVES, J.

This case involves alone the constitutionality of the special act of the 33d Legislature approved April 1, 1913, creating the Eagle Lake independent school district. See chapter 138, Local and Special Laws 33d Legislature. The sole objection leveled against its constitutionality is that it was passed without the local notice required before the passage of special laws by sections 56 and 57 of article 3 of the Constitution of Texas. The trial court sustained this objection, and upon that ground only declared the act unconstitutional and void.

The case originated in the trial court through suit filed by appellant district against appellee to enforce collection of an ad valorum tax of 50 cents upon the $100 valuation of taxable property of the district, which its trustees had assessed and levied against his lands—lying within its bounds— for the support and maintenance of the public free schools therein for the year 1914, and to establish and foreclose a lien for that purpose; appellee resisted upon the ground that the district was without authority to thus levy tribute upon him and his lands, and had in fact no legal existence, in that the special law creating it was wholly void for the reason already stated; the court having upheld this view so declared, and entered its general judgment in favor of appellee and against appellant, from which the latter has appealed.

The facts, for all needful purposes in passing upon the validity of the act, are practically undisputed. No local notice was given as prescribed in the sections of the Constitution above referred to; the trial court found as a fact, however, that all other provisions and requirements of the Constitution as well as statutes had been fully met, both in the creation of appellant district as such, and in the subsequent organization and procedure thereunder in seeking to require of appellee payment of the specified tax, and then concluded, as a matter of law, that it would be entitled to the judgment sought but for the court's holding that the act creating it was invalid, because passed without the requisite antecedent local notice; nor do either of the litigants question this fact finding, but part company solely upon the legal conclusion stated. After a careful consideration of the question, we conclude that the trial court erred in so striking down the act, and that it is not obnoxious to the objection urged against it.

We think that under the amendment of 1909 to our Constitution, appearing therein as section 3, art. 7, the local notice required by sections 56 and 57 of article 3 was not necessary for the creation of an independent school district and the investment of it with such powers as appellant here sought to exercise; the relevant part of that amendment is as follows:

"* * * And the Legislature may also provide for the formation of school districts by general or special law, without the local notice required in other cases of special legislation; and all such school districts, whether created by general or special law, may embrace parts of two or more counties. And the Legislature shall be authorized to pass laws for the assessment and collection of taxes in all said districts, and for the management and control of the public school or schools of such districts, whether such districts are composed of territory wholly within a county or in parts of two or more counties. * * *"

We have italicized the words "formation" and "created" in order to emphasize the two different constructions put by the litigants here upon the provisions quoted. The appellant contends that the power thus given to create such a school district by a special law, without the local notice formerly required, included, and perforce carried with it, the necessary authority to make the districts effective for the purposes contemplated in their establishment and to equip them with the machinery for accomplishing those purposes, while, upon the other hand, the appellee very ably insists that the amendment by its terms plainly limited the Legislature's right to so act by special law to the formation alone of the school districts, and that it could go no further.

As directly applied to the situation here, the appellee's argument is that, since the special act creating appellant district went beyond its mere formation, and not only abolished the pre-existing district known as the independent school district of the city of Eagle, Lake, but enlarged the bounds of that district so as to embrace appellee's lands, and then allowed the old district's assets taken over and its 20-year $15,000 bonded debt to be assumed by the new district, it exceeded the limits prescribed for such legislation, and was null and void. The act carried the provisions just recited, but they had all been submitted to a vote of the people of the new district and indorsed by an overwhelming majority before being put into effect. In substantiation of this construction put by him upon the provisions of the Constitution, appellee cites the following cases: Cummins v. Gaston, 109 S. W. 476; Parks v. West, 102 Tex. 11, 111 S. W. 726; Dallas County v. Plowman, 99 Tex. 509, 91 S. W. 221; Crabb v. Celeste Dist., 105 Tex. 194, 146 S. W. 528, 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 601; Snyder v. Baird Dist., 102 Tex. 10, 111 S. W. 723, 113 S. W. 521; State v. Wofford, 90 Tex. 514, 39 S. W. 921.

But we do not think they furnish authority for his position. The leading case relied upon (Parks v. West) was decided in June, 1908, before the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution now under consideration; indeed, it is apparent that this amendment was adopted in response to that very opinion of our Supreme Court, along with others of similar import, in which it was held that, under the wording of the Constitution as it then stood, an independent school district could not include portions of two different counties, but must lie wholly within the same county; that was the only question involved in that case, and therefore the only one decided; but since that decision, and evidently to remedy the situation thereby brought about, as before stated, the present article 7, § 3, was added, liberalizing and enlarging the authority theretofore existing for the passage of such laws without prior local notice, and expressly permitting school districts created under them to include parts of two or more counties. Wherefore, it seems to us, that opinion cannot be considered authority for giving to the amendment thereby occasioned the very narrow and restricted effect it was intended to remedy and to broaden; especially does this appear so to us, and as indicating a proper construction of the present article 7, § 3, when the following expression from that opinion is considered:

"We do not mean to say that if there were authority for the creation of school districts embracing parts of several counties, these provisions concerning elections and the payment of taxes would necessarily apply to such districts; for it is probably true, as held by the Court of Civil Appeals, that the power to create them and to have elections and taxation in them would carry with it power to provide the necessary machinery."

Neither do we think the other cited cases furnish encouragement for a construction so strict and technical. If the contention of appellee, that the only local or special legislation authorized by article 7, § 3, was the mere formation of school districts without the local...