Case ID: sw2d_39/html/1111-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BEDD Y, J. OURETON, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

George W. SHEFFIELD, Jr., Tax Collector, v. George H. SHEPPARD, Comptroller.
    No. 1240—5679.
    Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section B.
    June 10, 1931.
    Frank H. Booth, of San Antonio, and Austin Y. Bryan, Jr., of Houston, for relator.
    Robert Bee Bobbitt, formerly Atty. Gen., H. Grady Chandler, formerly Asst. Atty. Gen., James Y. Allred, Atty. Gen.; and Sidney Ben-bow, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
   BEDD Y, J.

Relator’s right to the award of a writ of mandamus against respondent is dependent upon the validity of a contract duly entered into between Mills-Dewitt Company, a corporation, and the commissioners’ court of Brazoria county, in which the former agreed to prepare abstracts, maps, and plats of lands in said county deemed necessary to facilitate the collection of taxes in consideration of the payment to it by the county of 33⅛ per cent, of all delinquent taxes, as of February 1,1929, ■which were actually collected.

The state challenges the validity of the contract upon various grounds. It is unnecessary to enter into a discussion of the questions thus raised, for the reason that our Supreme Court in the case of Commissioners’ Court v. Wallace, 118 Tex. 279, 15 S.W.(2d) 535, upheld the validity of a contract embodying substantially the same terms as the one here involved against the identical objections now presented.

The contract under consideration was entered into several months after the rendition of the above decision, and was evidently prepared with the view of following the very terms of the contract there construed, as it not only is a substantial copy of such contract, but, with a few immaterial exceptions, follows the identical wording thereof. Every objection now urged by the state was embodied in its brief filed in the above case, and the Supreme Court, after a full consideration of the objections thus urged, rendered its decision sustaining the validity of the contract.

Under authority of the ease discussed, the writ of mandamus must be awarded as prayed for, and we so recommend.

OURETON, C. J.

The opinion of the Commission of Appeals is adopted, and the mandamus awarded.