Wichita County v. Griffin

• Decision Date: 04 November 1955
• Docket Number: No. 15651,15651
• Citation: 284 S.W.2d 253
• Parties: WICHITA COUNTY, Texas, et al., Appellants, v. Warren GRIFFIN et al., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 253

284 S.W.2d 253

WICHITA COUNTY, Texas, et al., Appellants, v. Warren GRIFFIN et al., Appellees.

No. 15651.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth.

Nov. 4, 1955.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 2, 1955.

Guy McNeely, and W. L. Bass, Wichita Falls, for appellants.

Jones, Parish & Fillmore, and Elmer H. Parish, Wichita Falls, for appellees.

BOYD, Justice.

Appellees Warren Griffin, Lola Woodward, and Winifred E. McGar are the official Court Reporters for the three District Courts of Wichita County. They recovered judgment for a writ of mandamus to compel appellants, Wichita County and the four County Commissioners, to pay the salaries of appellees as fixed and set by the respective District Judges. The following statement of the case is from appellants' brief:

'* * * the annual budget for Wichita County for the year ending December 31, 1955, was approved and adopted by the Commissioners' Court of that county on September 16, 1954, and * * * such budget has not since been amended. Salaries of the official Court Reporters of the 30th, 78th and 89th Judicial District Courts were set by the Commissioners' Court in such budget at $4800.00 per annum each.

'Subsequently on November 1, 1954, the Judge of the 89th Judicial District Court of Wichita County, Texas, acting under Art. 2326 of Vernon's Civil Statutes, by order fixed the salary of his official Court Reporter at $5700.00 per annum effective as of that date. On December 21, 1954, the Judges of the 30th and 78th Judicial District Courts of Wichita County, Texas, respectively entered like orders and in the same amounts and effective as of the date of those orders.

'The Commissioners' Court continued to pay the Court Reporters' salaries on the basis set up in the annual budget, but refused to pay the increases as ordered by the Judges of the three District Courts; whereupon appellees, plaintiffs in the trial court, filed an application for mandamus against appellant, Wichita County, to compel its Commissioners' Court to pay the three increases of salary from $4,800.00 to $5,700.00 per annum each as granted by orders of the District Judges under Art. 2326. Appellant contends that by virtue of the Uniform Budget Law it could not amend its 1954-55 budget granting such raise; nor could it be compelled to do so by mandamus.'

Appellants assign as error the action of the court in overruling their exceptions to appellees' petition because it sought to compel the Commissioners' Court to make expenditures in excess of the budget as theretofore adopted, and because the petition sought to compel the Commissioners' Court to amend the budget. Error is also assigned to the failure of the court to hold: (1) that Article 2326 of the Revised Statutes is in violation of Section 7, Article XI, of the State Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St., because it permits a debt to be created against the County without provision for levying a tax for its payment; (2) that paragraph three of Article 2326 is unconstitutional because it delegates to the District Judges the right to determine salaries of Court Reporters, when that right is reserved to the Legislature; (3) that Article 2326, and particularly paragraph three thereof, is subservient to the Uniform Budget Act; and (4) that mandamus should be denied because appellees have an adequate remedy at law.

We are unable to agree with appellants' contention that this is a suit to compel the Commissioners' Court to amend the budget, or that the increases in the Reporters' salaries cannot be lawfully paid without an amendment to the budget. The budget for 1954 included an amount for Court Reproters' salaries as theretofore set by the District Judges, and the jury fund, the fund out of which the Reporters are paid, carried a contingent item of $2,500. Had the Reporters been paid the salaries for that year as set by the District Judges, the increase over the budgeted amount would have been less than $250. In the 1955 budget the jury fund, out of which the Reporters are to be paid, carries a contingent fund of $4,000. The County Auditor and two of the County Commissioners testified that the increase in the Reporters' salaries for this year could be paid out of that contingent fund. It was shown that for several years salary increases over the budgeted amounts had been paid out of similar contingent funds. In 1954 the County operated the fund out of which...