Harris County v. Bassett, 10988.
| Decision Date | 29 February 1940 |
| Docket Number | No. 10988.,10988. |
| Citation | 139 S.W.2d 180 |
| Parties | HARRIS COUNTY et al. v. BASSETT et al. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Harris County; Ewing Boyd, Judge.
Proceeding by Sam Bassett and another against Harris County and others for an injunction restraining the issuance of a commitment on an order of the commissioners' court of the county committing the named plaintiff to jail for contempt. From an order granting a temporary injunction, defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Daniel Jackson, Crim. Dist. Atty., and Marshall T. Anderson, W. L. Cook, Morris G. Rosenthal, and Tod R. Adams, Asst. Crim. Dist. Attys., all of Houston, for appellants.
J. S. Bracewell, of Houston, for appellees.
This is an appeal from an order of the Judge of the 55th District Court of Harris County granting an application for a temporary injunction brought by Sam Bassett and the Sam Bassett Lumber Company against the Commissioners' Court of Harris County, sitting as a Board of Equalization, and Jim Glass, Tax Assessor and Collector of Harris County, restraining the appellants from issuing a capias or commitment on an order of the Commissioners' Court of Harris County committing Sam Bassett to jail for contempt.
The appellants herein are the County Judge and the County Commissioners of Harris County and the Tax Assessor and Collector of Harris County.
Appellees Sam Bassett and Sam Bassett Lumber Company, a corporation, are resident taxpayers of Harris County. They are engaged in the retail sale of lumber and building material, and own taxable property in the county consisting of real estate, a stock of merchandise, money, notes, bills and notes receivable, automobile trucks and office furniture.
The record shows that the Tax Assessor and Collector of Harris County had called upon Sam Bassett, individually and as president of the Sam Bassett Lumber Company, to make a rendition of his property and the property of the Sam Bassett Lumber Company. This he refused to do. Thereupon the Tax Assessor and Collector made out and signed an unrendered assessment for both Sam Bassett and the Sam Bassett Lumber Company and submitted them to the Commissioners' Court with a memorandum of such refusal.
Upon being notified of such refusal the Commissioners' Court had issued and served on Sam Bassett its subpoena to appear before it on August 7, 1939, and to bring with him "the records, ledger sheets and inventories of properties, both real and personal, owned by the Sam Bassett Lumber Company as of January 1, 1939." Sam Bassett appeared at said hearing but did not bring or produce said books or records, contending before said board that said subpoena duces tecum was so vague, indefinite and general in its terms that he was unable to determine therefrom what books the court required him to produce on said hearing.
The assessment sheets submitted by the Tax Assessor and Collector show assessments for Sam Bassett, individually, of numerous items of real estate but no personal property with the exception of three automobiles valued at $1,200.
The assessment sheet for the Sam Bassett Lumber Company shows numerous items of real estate and the following personal property:
5 trucks valued at ..................... $500.00
Goods, wares & Merchandise valued
at ................................... 4000.00
Tools, implements & machinery
valued at ............................ 150.00
Office furniture valued at ............. 100.00
At said hearing he answered all questions propounded by members of the court as to his and his company's ownership of the personal property listed on the rendition sheets submitted by the Tax Assessor and Collector, but refused to give information with reference to property belonging to himself or his company which was not listed thereon, and refused to sign the rendition sheets submitted by the Tax Collector.
At the conclusion of said hearing the board, upon the refusal of Sam Bassett to answer the questions above referred to, voted and entered an order holding him in contempt. It assessed against him a jail sentence of 24 hours and a fine of $25, and ordered that he be confined in jail until such time as he should purge himself of such contempt by producing the books, records and papers called for in said subpoena and until he should give testimony as required by the court. This order was later modified by eliminating said fine.
Immediately after said order was entered and prior to the issuance of the commitment thereon, appellee, Sam Bassett, filed his petition in the district court praying for an injunction against the enforcement of said order. The judge of the district court immediately granted a temporary restraining order. Later, upon a full hearing on the facts, he issued a temporary injunction, restraining the enforcement of said contempt order.
Appellants contend: (1) That, since the act sought to be restrained was the execution of an order holding a witness in contempt of court, the only relief under such circumstances is an application for a writ of habeas corpus; (2) That, since the Commissioners' Court had jurisdiction of the person and subject matter of the suit and the undisputed evidence shows that there has been no abuse of discretion by the court, that therefore the trial court erred in granting a temporary injunction; and (3) that appellees had failed to either allege or prove a cause of action for injunction.
The contention that the district court has no supervisory control over the Commissioners' Court cannot be sustained.
Article 5, Section 8, of the Constitution of the State of Texas, Vernon's Ann.St., by its express terms, gives to the district court appellate jurisdiction and general supervisory control over the Commissioners' Court with the power to restrain said court in an abuse of its discretionary power.
The part of said Article 5, Section 8, of the Constitution material to this appeal, reads: "The District Court shall have appellate jurisdiction and general supervisory control over the County Commissioners Court, with such exceptions and under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; and shall have general original jurisdiction over all causes of action whatever for which a remedy or jurisdiction is not provided by law or this Constitution, and such other jurisdiction, original and appellate, as may be provided by law."
Articles 1908 and 1909, Revised Statutes of 1925, give the same jurisdiction to the district courts as that embraced in the above constitutional provisions, and since there are no other provisions in the...
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