Mills County v. Brown County

• Decision Date: 04 February 1895
• Parties: MILLS COUNTY v. BROWN COUNTY.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

29 S.W. 650

MILLS COUNTY v. BROWN COUNTY.

Supreme Court of Texas.

February 4, 1895.

Certified questions from court of civil appeals of Third supreme judicial district.

Action by Brown county against Mills county. Judgment was rendered for plaintiff, and defendant appealed to the court of civil appeals, which certified certain questions to the supreme court.

Triplett & Doughty and Lewis & Anderson, for appellant. H. H. Moore and Bell & Bell, for appellee.

GAINES, C. J.

1. The first section of the act in question provides, in effect, when any county has been created, or may thereafter be created, out of any other county or counties, its proportion of the indebtedness of the old county, existing at the time of its creation, shall be the same as its taxable values at the time bear to the taxable values of the parent county; that a suit may be brought to recover the same in the district court of either county; and that the court shall have power to make any order necessary to enforce its judgment. The second section provides that the assessment rolls of the original county for the year in which the new county was created shall be conclusive evidence of the value of the taxable property in the respective counties, unless assessment rolls for the newly-organized county shall have been made out in the same year, in which event the latter shall be the evidence of the taxable values of that county. Section 3 provides that suits brought under the act shall have precedence in the courts, and, in case of a recovery by the plaintiff, makes it the duty of the commissioners' court of the new county to levy a tax for the payment of the judgment. The fourth section contains merely a declaration of emergency, for the purpose of suspending the rule, and of putting the act in force from the time of its passage. These provisions all relate to one subject-matter, and we are of opinion that that subject is sufficiently expressed in the title, which reads as follows: "An act to provide for the payment by new counties of their proportionate share of the indebtedness of the older counties from which they were created." Laws 1893, p. 124. The contention seems to be that the words "new counties" indicate a purpose to embrace within the provisions of the act only such counties as should be created after the law had taken effect, and, therefore, that the title is not broad enough, under section 35 of article 3 of the constitution, to warrant the legislature in making the act applicable to counties which had been created before its passage. But to this proposition we do not assent. As was suggested in the argument, "new" is a relative term. We have a striking illustration of this fact in the case of the Holy Scriptures. The canonical books which appeared upon the advent of the Christian era, though now nearly 20 centuries old, are known in group as the "New Testament," in contradistinction to the former canonical books, which are known together as the "Old Testament." A county which has been taken from another, whatever its age, may properly be called a "new county," with reference to such other. We think the law valid, that it embraces within its provisions Mills county, and that it confers jurisdiction over the controversy upon the district court of Brown county.

2. We are clearly of the opinion that the act in question is authorized by section 1 of article 9 of the constitution of this state.

3. That provision in the section of the constitution mentioned in the question here propounded reads as follows: "When any part of a county is stricken off and attached to or created into another county, the part stricken off shall be holden for and obliged to pay its proportion of all the liabilities then existing of the county from which it was taken in such...