Gulf Production Co. v. Garrett
| Decision Date | 19 February 1930 |
| Docket Number | (No. 1148-5443.) |
| Parties | GULF PRODUCTION CO. v. GARRETT, Clerk of Court, et al. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
This is an original proceeding, filed in the Supreme Court, in which the petitioner, Gulf Production Company, in its own behalf and in behalf of all others similarly situated, seeks to have a mandatory writ of prohibition to all and each of the several clerks of the Courts of Civil Appeals in this state, restraining and prohibiting each of said clerks from destroying any of the records filed in their respective courts, or papers filed in connection therewith.
The occasion for the filing of this proceeding was the passage, by the Forty-First Legislature, of Senate Bill No. 154, chapter 263 of the General Laws of that Legislature, approved March 19, 1929, effective 90 days after adjournment, the caption of which reads as follows: "An Act amending Article 1831, Title 39, Revised Statutes of the State, prescribing certain duties of Clerks of Courts of Civil Appeals with reference to the filing, recording and preservation of the records and proceedings of said court."
Article 1831, which this act amends, is a part of chapter 2, tit. 39, Revised Statutes 1925, and reads as follows: "Each clerk shall file and carefully preserve all records certified to his court and all papers relative thereto, docket all causes in the order in which they are filed; record the proceedings of said court * * * and certify their judgments to the proper courts."
The Act approved March 19, 1929, designated as article 1831 as amended, after prescribing certain duties of each clerk of each Court of Civil Appeals, with a view of preserving the records of said courts, concluded with the following: "He [referring to each Court of Civil Appeals] shall, after ascertaining that, any case filed in said court has been finally disposed of for a period of ten years, destroy all records filed in said court in connection therewith."
It will be observed that the caption of said Senate Bill No. 154 indicates an amendment of said article 1831, describing certain duties of said clerks "with reference to the filing, recording and preservation of the records." It will be further observed that neither said caption nor the article of the Revised Statutes, which it purports to amend, has any reference to the destruction of any records or papers, but, on the contrary, to the preservation of the same. However, the sentence of said Senate Bill No. 154, quoted above, undertakes to authorize and require the clerks of each Court of Civil Appeals to destroy all records filed in said court in connection with any case which has been ascertained to have been finally disposed of for a period of 10 years, thereby undertaking to cause the destruction of public records and files in disposed of cases.
The petitioner contends that this piece of legislation by the Forty-First Legislature is contrary to the law of the state and the authorized and mandatory rule prescribed by the Supreme Court, and against what the Supreme Court has determined to be the demands of public policy, and as violative of the rights of parties to the litigation, as well as of third persons.
The petitioner further alleges that "it owns land, and interest in lands acquired and gained from time to time in the lawful prosecution of the business of its incorporation as an oil producing company; that many of its titles and the evidences thereof depend to a greater or lesser extent on the records of the several Courts of Civil Appeals and the original documents and other papers filed therein, and on facts established and shown to be established by evidence manifest from said records, which, in many cases, have involved and will hereafter involve the necessity of using such records as the best existing evidence, not only of original instruments and documents but of testimony of witnesses now passed away, in suits involving the rights or some of the rights between the parties to such former litigation or their privies."
The petitioner further alleges that, "because of the fact that the caption to the aforesaid Senate Bill No. 154, constituting Chapter 263 of the Acts of the Forty-First Legislature of Texas, deals with but one subject, to-wit: that of filing, recording and preservation of the records in said Court, and in nowise expresses in said...
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