Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v. Galveston County

• Decision Date: 28 November 1900
• Citation: 59 S.W. 589
• Parties: SOUTHWESTERN TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE CO. v. GALVESTON COUNTY.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

59 S.W. 589

SOUTHWESTERN TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE CO. v. GALVESTON COUNTY.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

November 28, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Galveston county; E. D. Cavin, Judge.

Action by the county of Galveston against the Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Case dismissed.

Harris & Harris, for appellant. James B. & Charles J. Stubbs and Lovejoy, Sampson & Malevinsky, for appellee.

GARRETT, C. J.

The appeal in this case is from a judgment of the district court of the Fifty-Sixth judicial district commanding the appellant to remove from the bridge across Galveston Bay, belonging to the county of Galveston, its wires and structures placed thereon by the appellant, and to enjoin the further use thereof by the appellant. It has been made to appear to this court by counsel for the appellee that since the filing of the transcript of the record here on appeal the bridge, as well as the wires and structures, were destroyed by the storm of September 8, 1900, and have ceased to exist, and the appellee has moved, for that reason, to dismiss the appeal.

When the subject-matter of the controversy between the parties to a suit has ceased to exist, the courts will not try the case to determine the question of what the rights of the parties were. Cases have come before the supreme court of this state involving the right to an office the term of which had expired since the rendition of the judgment in the court below, and it has been uniformly held that, the subject-matter of the controversy having ceased to exist, the appeal would not be entertained merely to determine a question of costs. Robinson v. State, 87 Tex. 565, 29 S. W 649; Lacoste v. Duffy, 49 Tex. 768; Gordon v. State, 47 Tex. 208; McWhorter v. Northcutt (Tex. Sup.) 58 S. W. 720. The case last cited was upon an application for a writ of error to this court. 57 S. W. 904. Bolton v. City of San Antonio, 4 Tex. Civ. App. 174, 23 S. W. 279, was a case in which the court below had refused to enjoin the issuance of bonds by the city. There was an appeal from the judgment, but the city having, in the meantime, issued the bonds, and the fact having been made known to the appellate court, the case was dismissed upon the authority of Lacoste v. Duffy, supra. There are numerous other decisions upon analogous facts that courts are limited to determining rights which are actually controverted in the particular case before them, but are not empowered to decide abstract propositions, or to declare for the government of future cases principles of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue. California v. San Pablo & T. R. Co., 149 U. S....