Hidalgo County Drainage Dist. No. 1. v. Davidson

• Decision Date: 23 June 1909
• Parties: HIDALGO COUNTY DRAINAGE DIST. NO. 1. v. DAVIDSON, Atty. Gen.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

120 S.W. 849

HIDALGO COUNTY DRAINAGE DIST. NO. 1. v. DAVIDSON, Atty. Gen.

Supreme Court of Texas.

June 23, 1909.

Original petition for mandamus by the Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 against R. V. Davidson, Attorney General. Writ denied.

D. B. Chapin and Don A. Bliss, for relator. R. V. Davidson, Atty. Gen., and J. T. Sluder, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

BROWN, J.

The drainage district by its commissioners filed its petition in this court against R. V. Davidson, Attorney General, in which it set up with great particularity, not necessary to be followed in this statement, a compliance with all of the acts required by an act of the Legislature approved March 23, 1907, authorizing the commissioners' court to establish drainage districts. See Laws 30th Leg. 1907, p. 78, c. 40. The formation of the district by the county court upon a petition as required by the statute, the holding of the election under the law, the surveying and plotting of the canals, etc., by the engineer, and, in fact, all of the minutia prescribed by the said act, is shown to have been complied with, and the commissioners' court on the 10th day of May, 1909, entered an order in conformity with the requirements of the statute authorizing the bonds of the district to be issued in the sum of $176,000, and at the same time making a levy of 48 cents on the $100 valuation to raise a fund with which to pay the interest and sinking fund on the said bonds. It is alleged that the bonds did not exceed one-fourth of the taxable value of the property in the district, and that in all particulars mentioned by the statute the said court had complied with law in conducting the said matter until the time came for the issuing of the bonds. It is not alleged that any bonds were ever prepared, printed, or lithographed, signed or in any way executed by the officers of the said county or the drainage district, but it is alleged in the said petition that, before offering the said bonds for sale, the said officers of the drainage district sent to R. V. Davidson, Attorney General, at Austin, a copy of the bonds with all of the data which the law required to be submitted to him for his examination, and that he examined the same and refused to approve them, because of certain objections specified in a letter written to the parties representing the said district, among which was the fact that it did not appear in the petition for the creation of the district that the signers were resident taxpayers of the said district. The petition prays that said Attorney General be required to make the certificate prescribed by law that said bonds were issued in conformity with the Constitution and laws of this state, and that they are valid and binding obligations on the said district by which they were issued. The Attorney General answered the petition by general and special demurrer and by the following statement of facts, showing the reason why he should not be required to make such certificate:

"(1) That a transcript of the proceedings for the issuance of bonds by this district was presented by and on behalf of the commissioners' court to the Attorney General's department for approval; that the same was rejected and disapproved for the following reasons:

"(a) The petition to the commissioners' court for the establishment of said drainage district and issuance of bonds therefor did not recite that the signers thereof resided within the proposed drainage district.

"(b) That said petition did not recite that the lands of said petitioners were incorporated within the boundaries of said proposed district.

"(c) That said petition did not show or recite that as many as 25 of the signers of said petition were freehold resident property taxpayers of said proposed district, nor did it recite that a third of said freehold property taxpayers of said district had signed said petition, which reason for rejecting said proceedings were embodied in an opinion to D. B. Chapin, dated March 30, 1909, a true copy of which opinion is hereto attached, marked `Exhibit A,' and made a part hereof. That said opinion contains all of the reasons of the Attorney General for refusing to approve the transcript of the proceedings for the issuance of said bonds.

"(2) That no bonds of said drainage district have ever been presented to the Attorney General or to the Attorney General's department for approval."

The Attorney General objects that the relator has never presented to him or to his department any bonds, and that the circumstances have not transpired which would authorize him to act upon the validity of the bonds. If that be correct, then it necessarily terminates this proceeding. Therefore we will first examine the statute to ascertain if the facts alleged and admitted show that any duty has been devolved upon the Attorney General or his department in connection with the bonds. The language of the...