Case ID: tex_54/html/0492-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Quinan, Commissioner.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Moody & Jamison v. C. R. Cox.
    (Case No. 1104.)
    1. Injunction— Jurisdiction.—Injunction issued in 1878 from the district court, to restrain the sheriff from collecting $876.47 due for taxes. There was no allegation of damages sustained, or that the sale of the land levied on for taxes would cloud the title or work irreparable mischief. Held —
    1. The district court had no jurisdiction.
    2. The remedy should have been sought in the county court, where the power to grant relief in a proper case was full, adequate and complete.
    2. Statutes construed.—• The exemption from the payment of taxes, extended to certain persons in Brazoria county by the act of 1876, was limited to those who were on the shore of the mainland not more than five miles from the usual water-line of ordinary tide during the storm of 1875, and did not embrace persons living elsewhere.
    Error from Brazoria. Tried below before the Hon. Wm. H. Burkhart.
    
      Thos. Q. Masterson, for plaintiff in error.
   Quinan, Commissioner.

Moody and Jamison, of Galveston county, sued out in the district court of Brazoria county this injunction to restrain Cox, the sheriff, from proceeding to collect $376.47 taxes assessed against their property, for the collection of which he had levied upon certain lands. They claim that this property was exempt from taxes for the year 1876 by virtue of the “Act to reheve from taxation the property of certain citizens of Brazoria and Matagorda counties.”

On the hearing the district court dissolved the injunction and dismissed the case.

We are of opinion that the district court of Brazoria county had no jurisdiction in the case.

The amount of taxes was less than $500. There is no allegation of damages sustained by plaintiff in any amount whatever. There is no averment that the sale of the property would be a cloud upon their title or work them, irreparable mischief. There is not the least reason alleged for the interposition of a court of equity, if the district court had general equity jurisdiction.

But the county court had jurisdiction and power to grant-the writ of injunction, the amount of taxes being under $1,000 and over $200. Their remedy there, for a11 that appears in this petition, if the action of the sheriff worked them any injury, was full, adequate and complete. Dean v. Girardin, 49 Tex., 243.

But if this were not so, the relief extended by the act referred to, was to those only who were on the shore of the mainland not more than five miles from the usual water-line at ordinary tide during the calamitous storm of September, 1875, and it did not embrace persons living elsewhere.

The case was rightly dismissed and the judgment ought-to be affirmed.

Affirmed,

[Opinion delivered March 11, 1881.]