Opinion No. O-791 

Re: Whether the employment as a teacher 

in a public school of a daughter 

of &half'-sister oft a,trustee Is 

;;filaaen by Article 432, Penal 

. 

Honorable E. B. Lewis 

County AttornBy 

Rusk, Texas 

Dear Sir: 

We are In receipt of your letter of May 8 1939, Yhereln you request our opinion as to whether Article 432, Penal 

Code, would be violated by the employment as a teacher -In an 

independent school distrlct~of the daughter of a half-sister 

of one of the trustees of s&M district. . .~ 

SAia Article 432 reads as follows: 

"No officer of this State or any officer of 

any district, county, city, precinct, school district, or other municipal subalvision of this 

State, or any.officer or member of any State, district, county, city, school district or other 

municipal board, or judge of any court, created 

by or under authority of any general or special 

law of this State, or any member of the Leglslature, shall appoint, or vote for, or confirm the 

appointment to any office, position, clerkship, 

employment or duty, of any person related within 

the second degree by affinity or within the third 

degree by consanguinity to the person so appointing or so voting, or to any other member of any 

such board, the Legislature, or court of which 

such person so appointing or votMg may be a member, when,the salary, fees or compensation of such 

appointee is to be paid for, directly or indirectly, out of or from public funas or fees of offfce 

of any kind or character whatsoever. 

p. 85, Acts 1915, P. 149." 

Acts 1909, 

The statute plainly applying to the employment ofschool teachers by boards of trustees of school alstrlcts, 

the question which you present to us is the effect produced 
Honorable E. B. Lewis, May 12, 1939, page 2 o-791 

upon the degree of relationship by the fact that the proposed 

teacher's mother is only a half-alater of the school trustee 

Instead of being a full sister. Collateral consanguinity is 

the relation subsisting am&g persons who aeticend from the 

s&e common ancestor biit~not from e&oh other. ‘Llneal consanguinity is that relationship which exists among persons 

where one is aecended from the other. In'~computing 'the aegree of lin&al consanguinity exlstlng between two persons 

every generation in the direct 5oui5se of relationship between the two parties makes a d&@tie. Thus, -brothers are 

related in the first degree. The mode of computing degrees 

of collateral consanguinity Is to begin with the common ahcestor and reckon dOWnWard and the degree the two perso 

or the more remote of them Is distant from the aricester is 

the degree of kinship between them. Thus, an uncle and a 

nephew are related Fn the second degree. First cousins are 

related by consanguinltg in the second degree. T. T. R. R. 

Co. v. Overton, 1 App. C. C., Section 533. 

In the cause which you subidt to u8, efther the mother 

or father of the trustee is the grandparent of the proposed 

teacher. Thus, one person iS the odmmon ancestbr of both the 

trustee and the proposed teacher, satisfying the above recognlzed test. ReckonFng downwards from that common ancestor to 

the teacher, we find that the teacher is related to the trustee in the senond degree by consanguinfty. We have~~founa no 

case prescribing as a test that the reckoning aovnwaras must 

begin with the point where~the parties have two common ancestors and we believe that none will be found.. 

The trustee is related to his half-niece by'consanguinity in the second degree an8 the employment is forbidden by 

the above statute. 

Yours very truly 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS 

GRL:FL:wc 

APPROVXD 

s/Gerald C. Mann 

ATTORNEYGENERAL OF TEXAS 

By s/Glenn R. Lewis 

Glenn R. Lewis 

APPROVHI OPINION COMMITTEE 

BY G. R. L. CHAIRNAN