# The Attorney General of Texas

August 5, 1981

HonorableMike Driscoll CountyAttorney Harris County Courthouse 1001Preston, Suite 634 Houston, Texas 77002 opinionNo. ~~-358

Re: Registrationof cattle brands under article 6899j, V.T.C.S.

Dear Judge Driscoll:

You have asked three questions concerning article 68993, V.T.C.S.,which provides in pertinentpart:

Section 1. (a)...In all...counties each
owner of any livestockmentioned in Chapter 1 of Title 121 of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1925 shall within six months after this Act takes effect have his mark and brand for such stock recorded in the office of the county clerk of the county. These owners shall record the marks and brands whether the brands and marks have been previouslyrecordedor not.

.... (d) Immediately upon the taking effect of thisAct the county clerk of the county shallhave this Act published in some newspaper of general circulation in the county for a period of thirty days. The publication shall be paid for by the county out of the general county fund.

sec. 2. All clerks in re-registeringbrands

. shall comply with Articles 6890 through 6899, inclusive,of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 1925,as amended,andwith Section 1, Chapter 273, Acts of the 41st Legislature, 1929, as amended (Article6899a...),and shall alsobe aware of and comply with Articles 1484, 1485, and 1486 of the Penal Code of Texas, 1925 [seenow articles 6997a, 689Oc, 6898al.

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Sec. 3. All brands and marks registered under the provisions of this Act shall be re-registered every 10 years in the manner prescribed in Section 1 of this act.
Article 6899jbecame effectiveon August 30, 1971.

Your questionsare as follows:

1. Under article 68995, is a county clerk required to notify the owner of cattlebrands of the expirationdate at the end of the ten year period?

2. Does section 3 of article 68993 require a county clerk topublishnotice as required in section l(d), or did that provision only applywhen the act initially took effect?

3. Does a county clerk have any responsibility to note in the cattle brand book that such brand has expired and/orhas been renewed?

Article 6899j--in particular, the section 3 requirement that marks and brands registered under the article be reregistered every tenyears-was the subject of Attorney General OpinionMW-289 (1980). In that opinion, we reconciled this requirementwith the requirement set forth in article 6890, V.T.C.S., that new cwners of livestock record their marks and brands with the clerk of the county in which their livestock are located. We pointed out that to construe the section 3 requirement as applyingonly to ownerswho registeredmarks and brands within six months of August 30, 1971, would .lead to an anomalous result. Those owners would be obliged to reregister every tenyears,while pursuant to article 6890, new ownerswho first record marks orbrands after that timewould not have to reregisterthem. We thereforeconcluded that themost sensible interpretationwas that:

Article 6899j, V.T.C.S., requires that all marks and brands registered prior to August 30. 1981, must be reregistered within six months of that date, and that the reregistration process must be repeated at subsequent ten-year intervals for then-currentowners.
With respect to your first question, neither article 6899j nor the other statutesmentioned in section 2 thereof suggest that county clerks must notify owners of the expiration date of their registration. We therefore answer your first question in the negative.

The answer to your second question depends upon the meaning of theunderlinedportion of section 3,which states that "Allbrands and

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marks...

shall be reregisteredevery 10 years in the manner prescribed in Section 1 of this act." (Emphasisadded.) On the one hand, it can reasonablybe argued that the referenceto section 1 doesnot apply to the publication requirement set forth in section l(d) but instead applies only to themethod and consequencesof reregistration itself. See §§l(a)-(c). This view gains some support from the fact that section l(d)provides that "Immediatelyupon the takingeffect of this Act the county clerk... shall have this Act published..." (Emphasis added.) This provision suggests that the publication requirement existed onlywhen article 68991 first took effect inAugust, 1971.

In a brief submitted to this office, however, it is argued that the legislaturemust have intended the reference to section 1 to apply to the entire section, including section l(d), because the clear purpose of section 3 is to ensuremaximum public participation in the reregistrationprocess. The brief points out that a livestock owner would be as unlikely to be cognizant of the need to reregister ten years later as he was of the need to registerwithin six months of August 30, 1971. Also, requiring notice of the reregistration requirement to be published every ten years is a relatively inexpensiveway to ensurepublic awarenessof it.

The law is settled that statutes are to be construed with reference to their manifest object. If statutory language is susceptibleof two constructions,one of which will carry out and the otherdefeat that object, it shouldreceive the former construction. Citizens Bank of Bryan v. First State Bank of Hearne, 580 S.W.2d 344 (Tex. 1979). We conclude that the views expressed in the brief referred to above are correct, and that the legislature intended the reference to section 1 to apply to the entire reregistrationprocess, including the section l(d)publication requirement. In this context, it should be noted--to carry the argument set out above one step further--thatnew ownerswho first record theirbrands or marks after the six-month period followingAugust 30, 1971, has expired would be
even less likely to be aware of the reregistration requirement than those ownerswho registeredduring thatperiod. We therefore conclude that county clerks are required to publish notice of the reregistrationrequirementevery tenyears as provided in section l(d) of article 6899j.
With respect to your third question, article 68991 contains no such requirement. However, section 2 thereof provides that, when reregisteringbrands, clerks must comply with articles 6890 through 6899. Article 6898 provides that:

The clerks of the county courts in their respective counties shall keep a well bound book, inwhich they shall record themarks and brands of each individual who may apply to them for that purpose, noting in every instance the date on which the brand or mark is recorded. (Emphasis added.)

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Acts 1971, 62nd Leg.. ch. 886. p. 2721, which relates to the microfilming of records by counties, see article 1941(a), V.T.C.S., provides in section 2 that all laws or parts of laws in conflictwith it are repealed to the extent of conflict, including article 6898. However, we do not believe the repealer applies to the underlined portion of article 6898, because it does not conflict with the requirements of the microfilming act. We therefore conclude that county clerks are obliged to note the dates on which brands or marks
are recorded.

SUMMARY

Article 6899j, V.T.C.S., does not require county clerks to notify owners of cattlebrands of the expiration date of their registration at the end of each tenyear period. Section 3 of article 6899j requires county clerks to publish thenotice required in section l(d) every ten years. County clerks are obliged to note the dates on which brands ormarks are recorded.

WHITE Attorney General of Texas

JOHNW. FAINTER,JR. FirstAssistantAttorneyGeneral

RICHARDE. GRAY III ExecutiveAssistantAttorneyGeneral
Preparedby Jon Bible AssistantAttorneyGeneral

APPROVED: OPINIONCOMMITTEE

SusanL. Garrison,Chairman Jon Bible Rick Gilpin JimMoellinger BruceYoungblood PeterNolan

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