State v. Steck Co.
| Decision Date | 07 February 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 9937,9937 |
| Citation | 236 S.W.2d 866 |
| Parties | STATE v. STECK CO. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Price Daniel, Atty. Gen., W. V. Geppert and John Reeves, Assts. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Smith, Rotsch & Steakley, Zollie C. Steakley and Cecil C. Rotsch, all of Austin, for appellee.
The Steck Company, a private corporation, after being granted permission by the Legislature to do so, filed this suit against the State to recover the alleged value of 39,603,690 cigarette tax stamps manufactured or printed by Steck and delivered to the State.
A non-jury trial resulted in a judgment for Steck, and the State has appealed.
The stipulated facts show that on July 6, 1937, the Cigarette Tax Stamp Board and Steck entered into a contract whereby Steck agreed to print and manufacture for the State 300,000,000 cigarette tax stamps at the price of 11.95 cents per one thousand stamps. This contract was awarded on competitive bids and was approved by the Governor, the Secretary of State and the Comptroller. The contract was fully performed, payment for the stamps was made, and the contract expired May 15, 1939. In the summer of 1939, while the Legislature was still in session, the Cigarette Tax Stamp Board contemplated that the Legislature would change the cigarette tax stamp law; whereupon the chief of the printing division of the Board of Control (that being the Cigarette Tax Stamp Board) contacted the vice-president of Steck, who was also the manager of its sales contract division, an agreement was made by these parties that Steck would furnish the State 100,000,000 cigarette tax stamps for the same price fixed by the contract of July 6, 1937. Steck was to deliver the stamps as they were needed and called for, and payment was to be made for the stamps when delivered. A requisition for 100,000,000 cigarette tax stamps was prepared by the Treasury Department, was sent to the Board of Control, was there signed by the director of the printing division and one member of the Board, and a copy was then sent to Steck. This contract was not approved by the Governor, the Secretary of State and the Comptroller, or either of them. By Different deliveries a total of 63,000,000 stamps were delivered and accepted but were not paid for. A dispute arose as to whether of not, under the law, payment for the stamps could be made and Steck demanded a return of the stamps delivered. At the time there were on hand 23,396,310 310 stamps, but 39,603,690 had been sold to distributors and wholesale dealers to be placed on individual packages of cigarettes as provided by law. The 23,396,310 stamps then on hand were later sold to the State under a new contract made in the manner and form prescribed by law and are of no further importance here.
Mr. E. W. Jackson, president of Steck, testified that the stamps were no printed but were manufactured by the decalcomania process; that the same machinery is used in that process that might be used in some printing. * * *'
The trial court filed findings of fact consistent with the facts as stated, supra, and further, by finding 11, that the stamps were not printed but were manufactured, and that the order for them was not for printing.
The trial court concluded that the stamps were not voluntarily delivered to the State and never became its property; that the stamps were taken and applied to a public use without the consent of the owner and without any compensation being made therefor; that Steck's claim for the reasonable value of the stamps is a legal obligation against the State, and that the common law right of Steck to recover the reasonable value of its property is a pre-existing law within the meaning of Art. III, Sec. 44, Texas Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St.Const., and that there is nothing in the Constitution and statutes of the State which prohibits the payment of the reasonable value of property of an individual which is used and destroyed by the State for a public use.
Appellant's first three points are directed to the holding of the trial court that the common law is pre-existing law within the meaning of Art. III, Sec. 44, Constitution of Texas.
The constitutional and statutory provisions pertinent here are:
Article 16, Sec. 21, Texas Constitution, provides:
Section 3 of Art. 7047c-1, Vernon's Ann.Civ.Statutes, creates a 'Cigarette Tax Stamp Board', and provides: ...
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