Ex Parte Travis

• Decision Date: 08 June 1934
• Docket Number: No. 6733.,6733.
• Citation: 73 S.W.2d 487
• Parties: Ex parte TRAVIS et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

73 S.W.2d 487

Ex parte TRAVIS et al.

No. 6733.

Supreme Court of Texas.

June 8, 1934.

Proceeding by M. M. Travis and another for a writ of habeas corpus.

Petition dismissed, with directions.

H. M. Harrington, of Longview, and F. W. Fischer, of Tyler, for relators.

James V. Allred, Atty. Gen., and Edward Clark and Bailey Sheppard, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the State.

Mayfield & Grisham, of Tyler, and Ocie Speer and Hart, Patterson & Hart, all of Austin, as amici curiæ.

GREENWOOD, Justice.

The relators, M. M. Travis and Harry Mathews, seek, by habeas corpus, a judgment of the Supreme Court discharging them from the custody of the sheriff of Gregg county, Tex., who holds them under an order of the 124th district court of Gregg county, convicting relators of contempt, and sentencing them to confinement in the county jail of Gregg county for 24 hours, and fining them $100, and taxing against them the costs of the contempt proceedings.

As stated in relators' petition, the district court adjudged them in contempt for having, as agents of the Southport Petroleum Company, violated a temporary injunction granted on March 22, 1934, by written flat of the district judge duly indorsed on the petition that day filed, in a suit brought against the Southport Petroleum Company by the state of Texas; such temporary injunction restraining the company and relators as its agents from transporting and handling crude petroleum without compliance with an order of the Railroad Commission of Texas, of date February 15, 1933; and also restraining the company and its agents from handling, refining, and processing crude oil without compliance with an order of the Commission of date September 29, 1933, as readopted on March 12, 1934.

The alleged acts of contempt were charged by the state's motion filed on April 5, 1934, to have been committed on April 1, April 2, and April 3, 1934. Relators admitted on the hearing in this court that appeal from the temporary injunction was duly perfected to the Court of Civil Appeals at Texarkana, and that the appeal was still pending in that court.

The motion to punish relators was heard on April 27, 1934, by the district court, and the judgment of that court declaring relators guilty and ordering their punishment was rendered on April 27, 1934. Thereafter, petition of habeas corpus was presented to the Supreme Court.

The ground urged for discharge of the relators by this court is the absence of evidence before the district judge and the district court showing that relators violated any valid order of the Commission or provision of the temporary injunction.

The statute under which the appeal was taken by the Southport Petroleum Company provides that any party to any suit "wherein a temporary injunction may be granted * * * may appeal from such order or judgment to the Court of Civil Appeals by filing the transcript in such case with the clerk of the said appellate court not later than twenty days after the entry of record of such order or judgment." (Italics ours.) Article 4662, vol. 14, Vernon's Ann. Tex. Civ. St. p. 117.

Construing the same language in an earlier statute, the Supreme Court, in Chief Justice Brown's opinion in Baumberger v. Allen, 101 Tex. at page 357, 107 S. W. 526, 527, said: "We think that the filing of the petition with the order indorsed thereon constitutes the `entry of record of such order.'" The same construction is given the statute in Ex parte Rains, 113 Tex. 433, 257 S. W. 217, opinion by Chief Justice Cureton.

It necessarily follows under the admission of relators that before the district court tried the relators for contempt, April 27, 1934, the appeal from the temporary injunction had been perfected by the filing of transcript not later than April 11th; that being the twentieth day after March 22d.

The relators have presented to this court the brief in the Court of Civil Appeals showing that the sole ground for the appeal there pending is that: "The district court was without authority to issue said injunction, and we desire to discuss the question of the validity of the injunction because of his lack of authority." The propositions urged for vacation of the temporary injunction sustain the above statement.

The motion of the state to punish for contempt in the district court was based entirely on averments of violations of the temporary injunction. The answer by relators to the motion raises the same question as those on which the appeal is prosecuted; the first section of this answer reading: "First. That said Injunction is in all things void for the reason that the facts alleged in the Plaintiff's petition are insufficient and do not warrant the issuance of said Injunction; that the Court was without power and authority to issue said Injunction."

It thus appears that the district court undertook to have a trial to determine the validity of its injunction, on motion for contempt, after the jurisdiction of the Court of Civil Appeals had fully attached for the determination of that precise question.

The general rule applies here, which is stated in 3 Texas Jurisprudence, at page 369, in section 262, in the following words: "As a general rule the perfection of an appeal or writ of error terminates the authority of the lower court pending the appeal, in respect of all matters which trench upon the appellate functions, so that the lower court may not thereafter proceed in the cause, at least as to the subject matter of the appeal or writ." (Italics ours.) If this were not true, a Court of Civil Appeals would be powerless to enforce its own jurisdiction. Yet a valid statute expressly declares, referring to Courts of Civil Appeals, that: "Said courts and the judges thereof may issue writs of mandamus and all other writs necessary to enforce the jurisdiction of said courts." Article 1823, Vernon's Ann. Tex. Civ. St.

There must be an end to orderly administration of justice if at the same time two separate courts entertaining different views...