Maroney v. Feagin

• Decision Date: 12 June 1924
• Docket Number: (No. 1130.)
• Citation: 264 S.W. 105
• Parties: MARONEY et al. v. FEAGIN et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 105

264 S.W. 105

MARONEY et al. v. FEAGIN et al.

(No. 1130.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Beaumont.

June 12, 1924.

Rehearing Denied June 25, 1924.

Appeal from District Court, Angelina County; L. D. Guinn, Judge.

Suit by R. M. Feagin and others against J. T. Maroney and four others, as County Judge and as Commissioners of the Commissioners' Court of Angelina County. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. Reversed and rendered for defendants.

Fairchild & Redditt, of Lufkin, for appellants.

M. M. Feagin, of Livingston, for appellees.

WALKER, J.

Certain citizens of road district No. 7 in Angelina county, Tex., suing in the name of and for the benefit of the district, instituted this suit against the county judge and the four commissioners constituting the commissioners' court of Angelina county, praying for an injunction to restrain them from expending in other portions of the county all the proceeds of the county-wide bond issue in the sum of $1,142,500, and for mandamus to force the court to expend $20,000 of such bond issue on a certain road in the district. On a trial to the court without a jury, injunction was granted plaintiffs against the defendants, restraining them from expending as much as $10,000 of the bond issue, and requiring the defendants to expend this sum in improving that portion of the Burke and Lufkin public road which lies within the boundaries of the district. From this order defendants have prosecuted their appeal.

Plaintiffs alleged that in 1921 road district No. 7 voted bonds to the amount of $20,000 for the purpose of improving the Burke and Lufkin road; that the election was duly held and its results duly declared; that before the bonds were issued and sold the county as a whole voted bonds in the sum of $1,142,500, thereby rendering their unissued and unsold bonds void. The purpose of this suit was to force the commissioners' court to compensate the district under the provisions of article 637a, Texas Complete Statutes, which is as follows:

"Art. 637a. County May Issue Bonds to Compensate Districts for Bonds issued; Election; Tax. — Whenever in any political subdivision or defined districts in any county in this state bonds have been issued under the authority of chapter 2, title 18, Revised Civil Statutes of Texas of 1911, or any amendments thereto, or under authority of any special county road law, and thereafter bonds are voted by the entire county for the purposes hereinafter authorized, such political subdivisions or defined districts first issuing bonds may be fully and fairly compensated by the county in an amount equal in value to the amount of district bonds issued by such districts, and which shall be done in the form and manner hereinafter prescribed: * * * In the event such district bonds have not been issued and sold, then so much of the bonds so issued by the county as may be necessary to fairly and fully compensate such road district or districts shall be set aside by the commissioners' court for that purpose; provided, that in the event such district bonds have not been issued and sold, then so much of the bonds so issued by the county as may be necessary to fairly and fully compensate such road district or districts shall be set aside for that purpose, and the same shall be sold and the proceeds applied to the construction, maintenance and operation of the roads within and for such road district or districts as contemplated by the election or elections theretofore held within and for such road district or districts, and such unsold district bonds shall thereupon become totally void, and it shall be the duty of the commissioners' court of such county to immediately cancel and destroy such unsold district bonds."

The defendants answered by a plea in abatement to the effect that the county was a necessary party, certain exceptions, a general demurrer, and a special plea that the commissioners' court had fully compensated the district within the meaning and purpose of article 637a.

It is conceded by both parties that road district No. 7 voted bonds in the sum of $20,000 for the purpose of improving the Burke and Lufkin public road within the boundaries of the district, and that the results of the election were duly declared; that the county as a whole voted bonds in the sum of $1,142,500 for the purpose of improving the county roads and for compensating the road districts within the county. It is also conceded that the bonds voted by road district No. 7 were not issued nor sold because the results of that election were made void by reason of the county election. It is also conceded that after the county bonds were voted, but before they were issued and sold, the commissioners' court, by an order duly entered, directed that the Burke and Lufkin public road within the boundaries of road district No. 7 be improved to the extent of $20,000 on the specifications set out in the order, and that the costs of the improvement be paid for from the county-wide bond issue. It is further conceded that the work as contemplated by the order was done on the Burke and Lufkin road within the boundaries of road district No. 7; but, as this work was done before the bonds were sold, we find as a fact that the work was paid for by road warrants, and that no amount of the county-wide bond money went into the improvement of that road. In developing a road system for Angelina county to be improved by the county-wide bond issue, the commissioners' court did not adopt the Burke and Lufkin road which lies on the west side of the Houston East & West Texas Railroad as a part of one of its highways, but under the advice of the state and federal engineers, and in order to secure state and federal aid, the main highway leading from Lufkin towards Houston was located on the east side of the Houston East & West Texas Railroad, on the extreme eastern side of the district. Possibly as much as $25,000 of the county-wide bond money was expended in improving that section of the main highway which lies within the boundaries of road district No. 7. In improving the Burke and Lufkin road south from the city of Lufkin across road district No. 7, the commissioners' court did not connect this old road with the new highway. The $10,000 set apart by the order of the court was to be used under the judgment in this case in connecting the improved portion of the Burke and Lufkin road with the new highway. It further appears that road district No. 7 was very small in extent, and that most of its citizens live on the western side of the railroad, and that the new highway on the eastern side of the railroad serves but few of its citizens. It further appears that the Burke and Lufkin road as improved by the commissioners' court was the only road within the boundaries of road district No. 7 when the $20,000 bond issue was voted, and that at the time the $20,000 bond issue was voted no one contemplated that a road would be located across the district on the eastern side of the railroad where the commissioners' court located the main highway.

Opinion.

The court did not err in refusing to sustain appellants' plea in abatement. Angelina county was not a necessary party to this suit. Article 637a, as...