Williams v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 11 March 1892 |
| Citation | 19 S.W. 156 |
| Parties | WILLIAMS v. TAYLOR, District Clerk. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Suit for mandamus by Henry W. Williams, guardian, against L. R. Taylor, district clerk. On final hearing peremptory writ was refused. Plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and writ awarded.
Bowlin & Bowlin, for appellant. Seth Stewart, Hyde Jennings, and F. W. Ball, for appellee.
This is presented as an agreed case. The appellant filed a petition in the district court of the forty-eighth judicial district of Tarrant county against Rush Loyd and others in an action of trespass to try title, and demanded of appellee, as clerk of that court, that he should issue citation to defendants, returnable to a term of the court alleged to begin on the second Monday in May, 1892. The clerk refused to make the citation returnable as requested, and this suit was brought to compel him to do so. An alternative writ of mandamus was issued, but upon final hearing the peremptory writ was refused, and the suit was dismissed.
The forty-eighth judicial district of the state was created by an act of the legislature which was approved February 11, 1891. That act provided that the regular terms of the court should be held on the second Monday in February and October of each year; but at a subsequent day of the same session of the legislature another act was passed, which, in addition to the terms formerly prescribed, provided for a third to begin on the second Monday in May. The appellee claims that this latter act never became a law, and upon the decision of this question the determination of this suit depends. The grounds upon which the validity of the act is assailed are stated as follows in the agreement upon which the case is submitted to this court: "(1) That the journals of the senate of the twenty-second legislature, in which said bill originated, showed that it had not been presented and referred and reported from a committee at least three days before the final adjournment of the legislature; and (2) that the necessity for the suspension of the rule requiring bills to be read on three several days in each house was not sufficiently stated in said act." The power of the courts, under the form of government common to the states of this Union, to declare void an act of the legislature on the ground that such legislation is prohibited by the constitution of the state was questioned at an early day in the history of our jurisprudence, but that the power exists is now settled beyond controversy. As to the authority of the courts in such cases there should never have been any serious question. In passing a law the legislature acts under the authority conferred by a written constitution, and whether or not it has exceeded its authority in the passage of any particular act is a judicial question. The constitution is the superior law, and when attempted legislation conflicts with its restrictions and purports to make a law which is thereby prohibited it is clearly the duty of the courts to declare such legislation void, and to give it no effect. In every such case the vice of the enactment appears upon its face, and no one who takes the proper steps to inform himself as to the law need be misled by it. But, in addition to certain laws which the constitutions of most of our states in terms more or less explicit prohibit their respective legislatures from making, it has become customary to prescribe in the fundamental law certain rules of procedure by which the two bodies which compose the legislature are to be guided in framing and passing statutes. Such is the constitution of our own state, and it is for the supposed violation of these rules of procedure that the act in question in this case is claimed to be void. It would seem upon first blush that there should be a broad distinction between the authority to declare an act of the legislature void for want of power to pass the law in any manner, and the jurisdiction to annul a statute upon the ground that some provision of the constitution as to the mode of its passage has not been observed. The same distinction exists with reference to the judgments of the courts themselves. If, when the validity of a judgment is called in question, it appear that the court was without jurisdiction, — that is to say, that it had no power to hear and determine the case and to render any judgment in the premises, — the judgment will be held void in any suit in which its validity may be involved. But if the court have jurisdiction, no other court would have power in any collateral proceeding to revise its judgment, however irregular its proceedings may have been. Much stronger reasons exist why we should hesitate to annul the action of the legislature upon grounds of irregularity in its procedure than exist when we are asked to declare void the judgment of a court. Our constitution devolves the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of the government each upon a separate magistracy, and declares that no person or a collection of persons attached to either of the departments shall exercise the functions belonging to either of the others. Const. 1876, art. 2, § 1. The courts certainly have no power to revise or amend the statutes passed by the legislature, and we think they should ponder well before undertaking to revise the proceedings of either house of the legislature, and to declare its action void merely on account of its failure to observe some rule of procedure prescribed in the constitution. That it was competent to confer such a power upon the courts by the organic law we see no good reason to doubt. But when we consider the consequences of the exercise of such power, we think the authority should very plainly appear in the constitution before the courts should undertake to exercise it. In those tribunals in which it has been held that the journals of the two branches of the legislature could be looked to in order to determine whether or not the requirements of the constitution had been observed in passing a statute, with a view to test its validity, the decision has been placed upon the ground that the constitution required each house to keep a journal of its proceedings, and that the object of that...
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Ex Parte Myer
... ... Williams v. Taylor, 83 Tex. 667, 19 S. W. 156; Higgins v. Rinker, 47 Tex. 385; Galveston Ry. Co. v. Gross, 47 Tex. 428; Huntsman v. State, 12 Tex. App. 619 ... ...
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Parshall v. State
...with the construction first mentioned just above. Tipton's Case, 28 Tex. App. 438, 13 S. W. 610, 8 L. R. A. 326; Williams v. Taylor, 83 Tex. 672, 19 S. W. 156; Railroad v. Foth, 44 Tex. Civ. App. 275, 100 S. W. 170; s. c., 101 Tex. 133, 100 S. W. 171, 105 S. W. 322. The Supreme Court of the......
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Strauss v. State
...is thereby prohibited, it is clearly the duty of the courts to declare such legislation void and to give it no effect. Williams v. Taylor, 83 Tex. 667, 19 S. W. 156; Galveston, etc., Ry. Co. v. Gross, 47 Tex. 428; Higgins v. Rinker, 47 Tex. 381; Watson v. Aiken, 55 Tex. It has also been hel......
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James v. Gulf Ins. Co.
...bill filed with the Secretary of State, and the rule is settled in this State that its validity cannot be so impeached. Williams v. Taylor, 83 Tex. 667, 19 S.W. 156; Blessing v. City of Galveston, 42 Tex. 641; Day Land & Cattle Co. v. State, 68 Tex. 526, 4 S.W. 865; Ellison v. Texas Liquor ......