Texas Employment Com'n v. Camarena

• Decision Date: 16 April 1986
• Docket Number: Nos. 14,479,14,532,s. 14,479
• Citation: 710 S.W.2d 665
• Parties: TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION, et al., Appellants, v. Roberto CAMARENA, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 665

710 S.W.2d 665

TEXAS EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION, et al., Appellants, v. Roberto CAMARENA, et al., Appellees.

Nos. 14,479, 14,532.

Court of Appeals of Texas Austin.

April 16, 1986.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 1986.

Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Joseph W. Barbisch, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, for appellants.

James C. Harrington, Austin, for appellees.

Before POWERS, EARL W. SMITH and BRADY, JJ.

POWERS, Justice.

The Texas Employment Commission, its members, and the Attorney General of Texas appeal from declaratory judgments rendered in two suits brought against them by nine agricultural employees. Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, Tex.Civ.Prac. & Remedies Code, §§ 37.001-37.011 (1986). We will reverse the judgments below and remand to the trial court with instructions that the suits be dismissed because the underlying controversy is now moot.

THE CONTROVERSY

The Texas Employment Commission administers the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5221b-1 to 24 (1971 & Supp. 1986) (hereinafter "the Act"). The Act imposes against certain kinds of employers in the State an excise tax which, when collected by the Commission, constitutes a fund from which many classes of employees in the State are paid benefits during periods when they may be unemployed through no fault of their own. The Act was passed originally in 1936. From that time until the present, the Act has never imposed the excise tax against all categories of employers and has never provided for payment of benefits to all categories of employees. One category excluded from coverage, from 1936 until recently, consisted of employers who engaged and employees who performed "agricultural labor." Art. 5221b-17(g)(5)(B); State v. The Praetorians, 143 Tex. 565, 186 S.W.2d 973 (1945); Friedman v. American Surety Co., 137 Tex. 149, 151 S.W.2d 570 (1941); State v. Sullivan, 377 S.W.2d 839 (Tex.Civ.App.1964, no writ).

In 1985, however, the 69th Legislature amended the Act to provide that "farm and ranch labor" would come within the coverage of the Act effective January 1, 1986. 1985 Tex.Sess.Law Serv., ch. 67, §§ 1-2, at 244-54. The amendment originated as House Bill 32 and we shall, for convenience, refer to the amendment as "H.B. 32."

In 1984, while "agricultural labor" remained outside the coverage of the Act, nine agricultural employees and the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, a labor union, sued the Commission, its members, and the Attorney General under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, alleging that the Act was unconstitutional in those provisions which resulted in the exclusion of "agricultural labor." The plaintiffs requested that the exclusion be declared unconstitutional, that the defendants be enjoined from enforcing it in the future, that the plaintiffs' suit be designated a class action under Tex.R.Civ.P.Ann. 42 (1979 & Supp. 1986), and that the plaintiffs recover their costs and reasonable attorneys fees.

In the course of the proceedings, the trial court ordered that the suit be maintained as a class action but that it be severed into two suits: one brought by the plaintiffs in their individual capacity and one as representatives of the class of agricultural employees. The validity of this order is not in issue on appeal and we express no opinion in that regard. The trial court ultimately rendered final judgments in each of the two suits, in substantially the same terms, and both judgments are now before us on appeals taken by the Commission, its members, and the Attorney General.

TERMS OF THE TRIAL-COURT JUDGMENTS

The final judgment in the suit maintained by the plaintiffs in their individual capacities was signed May 15, 1985. Final judgment in the class-action suit was signed July 2, 1985. On July 3, 1985, notice of appeal was given by the Commission, its members, and the Attorney General. Thus, both judgments were signed and appeals were taken after the passage of H.B. 32 but before it became effective January 1, 1986.

The two judgments award the following declaratory relief: (1) those provisions of the Act excluding agricultural labor, before the passage of H.B. 32, were unconstitutional and unenforceable; (2) the effect of H.B. 32 is to supply the Act with the "minimal constitutional requirements and nothing more"; (3) the individual plaintiffs and the class members come within the coverage of the Act effective January 1, 1986; and (4) effective January 1, 1986, the earlier exclusion of "agricultural labor" shall be "inoperative and unenforceable for all purposes...."

Supplemental to the declaratory relief, the judgments enjoin the following activities by the Commission, its members, the Attorney General, and any acting under them:

(1) enforcing in any way the "agricultural labor" exclusion that was operative before January 1, 1986;

(2) enforcing in any way "any provision with respect to farm and ranch laborers or agricultural employees [that is] less inclusive or less expansive than those set out in House Bill 32 or which would prejudice, detrimentally affect, or in any way impinge upon the rights, status, and legal relations herein granted to [the individual plaintiffs] and the class members";

(3) enforcing any future amendment of the Act if the amendment should make provision for farm and ranch laborers or agricultural employees that is "less inclusive or less expansive than those enjoyed by all other employees" under the Act or that "discriminates, invidiously or otherwise [sic], against farm and ranch laborers and agricultural employees"; and

(4) "denying, prejudicing, detrimentally affecting, or in any way impinging upon the rights, status, legal relations, coverage, benefit, protection, and entitlements of the provisions of House Bill 32 or of this judgment...."

Finally, the two trial-court judgments contain several provisions under the heading "miscellaneous." These include statements to the effect that the judgments are intended to secure only the "minimal constitutional requirements" necessary to prevent "unlawful discrimination" against "farm and agricultural workers"; and, a statement that nothing in the judgments is intended to prevent enforcement of unemployment benefits "more expansive and extensive" than those contemplated by H.B. 32. Neither judgment purports to award any plaintiff money damages representing benefits unlawfully withheld by the State.

MOOTNESS

The Commission, its members, and the Attorney General contend the controversy has become moot on appeal. We sustain the contention.

We need not discuss at length the fundamental proposition that courts exist to determine actual and existing controversies and to enforce their determinations made in that connection. They do not sit to adjudicate controversies that are or become "moot" or abstract owing to the absence of a bona fide controversy or the absence of an existing fact or right necessary to their adjudication. See City of West University Place v. Martin, 132 Tex. 354, 123 S.W.2d 638 (1939); Morrow v. Corbin, 122 Tex. 553, 62 S.W.2d 641 (1933); McNeill v. Hubert, 119 Tex. 18, 23 S.W.2d 331 (1930); Munger v. Richards, 87 S.W.2d 797 (Tex.Civ.App.1935, writ ref'd). The mootness doctrine applies with full force to actions brought under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, supra, as the present actions were. Firemen's Ins. Co. of Newark N.J. v. Burch, 442 S.W.2d 331 (Tex.1968); California Products, Inc. v. Puretex Lemon Juice, Inc., 160 Tex. 586, 334 S.W.2d 780 (1960).

A suit may fall within the mootness doctrine for any number of reasons. Included among such reasons are two that apply in the present appeals: (1) an absence or discontinuance of any real or bona fide dispute between the litigants about the subject matter; and (2) a change in the basic law under which a pleaded controversy was or will be adjudicated. Either may result in the mootness of an appeal. An example of the first category occurs when a litigant unreservedly and voluntarily pays a disputed sum adjudged against him. Casray Oil Corp. v. Royal Indemn. Co., 141 Tex. 33, 169 S.W.2d 955 (1943). Another in that category exists when a real, actual, or bona fide controversy cannot arise until the happening of a contingency and there is no allegation or contention that it has in fact occurred. Munger v. Richards, supra.

There exist several examples of the second category--a change in the basic law under which a pleaded controversy is required to be adjudicated. Mootness occurs in a suit to cancel an agency permit when a new statute brings all permits to an end, whether valid or not, and provides for issuance of new permits on surrender of the old. Railroad Commission v. Texas & P. Ry. Co., 138 Tex. 148, 157 S.W.2d 622 (1941). A suit to enjoin an unconstitutional statute becomes moot when the Legislature enacts a new statute to the same effect that is conceded to be constitutional. Page v. Tucker, 288 S.W. 809 (Tex.Comm.App.1926, jdgmt. adopted). A suit to enjoin conduct prohibited by a statute becomes moot when the statute is amended in a way that requires judicial construction to determine whether the conduct falls within the proscription of the new statute. Clymore Co. v. Railroad Commission of Texas, 86 S.W.2d 797 (Tex.Civ.App.1935, no writ.)

With these cases in mind, we turn to whether the controversy in the present appeals is moot insofar as it relates to the declaratory relief ordered in the trial-court judgments.

The judgments below declare that the Act, before its amendment by H.B. 32, was "unconstitutional and unenforceable" insofar as it purported to exclude "agricultural labor" from coverage. We hold the controversy to be moot in this regard. Whether the exclusion of "agricultural labor" was unconstitutional, as appellees contended, and whether the trial court erred in sustaining that contention, has been removed from the realm of legal controversy by H.B. 32, effective January 1, 1986. Page v. Tucker, supra; Railroad Commission v....