Southern Kansas Ry. Co. v. Vance

• Decision Date: 08 February 1911
• Citation: 133 S.W. 1043
• Parties: SOUTHERN KANSAS RY. CO. OF TEXAS v. VANCE.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

133 S.W. 1043

SOUTHERN KANSAS RY. CO. OF TEXAS v. VANCE.

Supreme Court of Texas.

February 8, 1911.

Certified Questions from Court of Civil Appeals of Second Supreme Judicial District.

Condemnation proceedings by the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas against J. C. Vance. From an award of damages the railway company appeals to the Court of Civil Appeals, which certified a question to the Supreme Court. Question answered.

Terry, Cavin & Mills and Hoover & Taylor, for appellant. Jasper N. Haney and R. R. Hazlewood, for appellee.

RAMSEY, J.

The question to be decided in this case is thus well stated in the certificate from the Court of Civil Appeals for the Second Supreme Judicial District: "The above cause now pending before us on appeal from the district court of Carson county is a condemnation proceeding begun by the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas, a railway corporation, before appraisers appointed by the honorable county judge of Carson county, from whose award the defendant, Vance, appealed to the district court of Carson county, where the case was tried, resulting in a verdict and judgment in the defendant's favor for $900 damages, from which the plaintiff has appealed. By act of the Twenty-Sixth Legislature (Gen. Laws Tex. 1899, p. 260) the jurisdiction of the county court of Carson county was in some respects diminished and that of the district court correspondingly enlarged. Appellant contends that, the appellate jurisdiction of the county court in condemnation proceedings being a special jurisdiction and not a part of the ordinary constitutional jurisdiction of that court, the act of the Twenty-Sixth Legislature referred to did not have the effect to deprive that court of jurisdiction over this appeal. In view of the very language of that act and the apparent intention of the Legislature evidenced by article 1166 [Rev. St. 1895] (Gen. Laws Tex. 1885, p. 77) that jurisdiction of the county court in matters of eminent domain shall not be affected by such acts, we are not satisfied as to the point thus raised, and since, at all events, the cause must be reversed for errors committed on the trial, we deem it proper to certify for your decision whether or not the district court had jurisdiction of the cause."

To this question we answer: The jurisdiction of the county court of Carson county, in respect to matters of eminent domain, was not affected by the act of the Legislature diminishing its general jurisdiction. By the terms of the act of the Nineteenth Legislature, approved March 31, 1885, it was provided "that all county courts whose civil jurisdiction has been heretofore, or may hereafter be diminished by law, to such extent as to no longer be able to exercise jurisdiction in matters of eminent domain shall, in addition to the powers and jurisdiction now...