Case ID: sw2d_32/html/0695-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "SMITH, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DUDDLESTEN et al. v. ROBINSON, Co. Atty.
    No. 8577.
    Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. San Antonio.
    Nov. 12, 1930.
    Robert E. Kirkpatrick, of Mercedes, and W. H. Crowell, of Raymondville, for appellants.
    Jesse C. Foster and R. E. Robinson, both of Raymondville, for appellee.
   SMITH, J.

This appeal is from a judgment of the district court of Willacy county declaring valid an election held in road district No. 4 of said county, authorizing the issuance of bonds in the sum of $100,000 for public road purposes. The action was brought in the nature of a contest of said election, and was instituted and prosecuted by Karl H. Duddles-ten and two other property taxpayers in said district against Roger Robinson, county attorney of the county. From an adverse judgment, Duddlesten and his associates have brought this appeal.

Appellants present three propositions of law in their brief, but they are- abstract and general in their nature; they present no specific questions for determination, are each predicated upon numerous assignments of error which raise a like number of distinct questions, none of which are germane to the propositions. The latter perform none of the offices of propositions of law as required by the rules or good practice; they afford no aid to an appellate court in ascertaining and deciding questions raised in the record.

However, we have nevertheless gone into the record in search of questions therein presented, because of the need of ascertaining and speedily determining and settling a matter of such inrportance as the validity of elections of the character here involved.

It appears that prior -to the creation of the present road district No. 4, here involved, the Commissioners’ Court entered orders creating road districts 4 and 5, but no elections were held in those districts and no debts, bonded or otherwise, were created against them.' Subsequently, the commissioners’ court decided that said districts could be more advantageously arranged, territorially, in the public interest, and with that in view the court, through regular proceedings, set aside its previous orders creating said districts. This accomplished, the court then regularly proceeded in the manner provided by statute to lay out and establish said districts by a different arrangement of the boundaries thereof.- Now, appellants contend that this process was beyond the power of the commissioners’ court; that the districts having been once created to embrace defined territories, they became fixed political subdivisions which could not be abandoned or redefined. We overrule tbis contention. Tbe matter of establishing sucb political subdivisions is a function of tbe commissioners’ court, to be exercised in their discretion as trustees for tbe public. So long as sucb districts, once created, have not functioned as sucb for any purpose, and no debts or other obligations have been charged to them, tbe commissioners’ court may set aside its orders establishing sucb districts, and may incorporate tbe abandoned territories into sucb new districts as they deem proper to create. This procedure was properly followed in tbis case.

In establishing district 4 and ordering and bolding tbe bond election therein, tbe commissioners’ court tracked tbe course so carefully and minutely prescribed by statute, with but one irregularity, now to be noticed. In tbe notice of election tbe district was minutely described, both by number and by meticulously defined metes and bounds. Throughout tbe notice tbe number of tbe district was repeatedly and correctly described as “Willacy County Road District Number (Four) 4.” But in one isolated clause of tbe lengthy notice tbe number of tbe district was erroneously designated by tbe numeral “5,” instead of “(Four) 4,” as in all other of tbe many references to tbe number. Tbe error in tbe isolated instance was obviously and purely clerical, by which no person intelligent enough to read tbe notice, or vote, could •possibly be misled. Tbe record discloses that none was so misled, and appellants’ complaint thereat is without merit. Tbe statute simply provides that sucb notices shall describe tbe district by “its name and number,” and by its boundaries. Article 729, R. S. 1925. Tbis requirement was fully met in tbe notice in question, and tbe isolated clerical error as to tbe number was immaterial when it occurred in tbe midst of oft-repeated and correctly given numbers, fortified by all the other correct,descriptions, including accurately set up metes and bounds.of tbe clearly defined territory. No one in tbe district refrained from voting on account of tbis clerical error, and no one without tbe right voted on account of it. Besides, tbis question cannot properly be raised and decided in an election contest. E. A. Warren v. Roger Robinson (No. 8578) 32 S.W. (2d) 871, tbis day decided by tbis court. -

Under their third proposition appellants complain of tbe action of the court in exclud- • ing the ballots of certain persons alleged to have voted against the bond issue, and of admitting 'the ballots of certain others alleged to have voted for the bond issue. These alleged rulings of tbe court are not shown by bill of exceptions or otherwise in tbe record, and tbe assignments of error raising those questions cannot be considered. The only way by which exceptions to sucb rulings may be preserved for consideration on appeal is by bill of exceptions, as a matter of course. So far as tbe record shows, without such bills, tbe trial court may have considered the ballots offered by appellants, and rejected those offered by contestee.

Under tbe third proposition appellants also complain of tbe ruling of tbe court upon certain exceptions urged by appellee to appellants’ petition. But as none of tbe exceptions or tbe pleadings in relation thereto are set out in appellants’ brief, tbis court is unable to pass upon tbe proposition. However, we have considered tbe trial court’s rulings in tbis respect, and see no reversible error in them.

It is evident from tbe whole record that the cause was fairly tried and disposed of below, and tbe judgment will be affirmed.