Opinion ID: 1485087
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unconstitutional Application

Text: The second basis for the trial court's judgment is that the application of the Texas Antiquities Act, Article 6145-9, to these buildings is unconstitutional as applied. We agree with this conclusion. Since the Antiquities Committee is a state agency, the Antiquities Committee's application of section 6 of the Antiquities Code must be judged by the substantial evidence rule. Railroad Commission v. Shupee, 57 S.W.2d 295 (Tex.Civ.App.1933), aff'd, 123 Tex. 521, 73 S.W.2d 505 (1934). The substantial evidence rule demands that we hold section 6 unconstitutional as applied if the evidence is such that reasonable minds could not have reached the conclusion that the Antiquities Committee must have reached in order to justify its actions. Trapp v. Shell Oil Co., supra ; [Railroad Comm.] TremCarr v. Shell Oil Co., 139 Tex. 66, 161 S.W.2d 1022 (1942). We hold that there is no substantial evidence in support of the action of the Antiquities Committee. There are two reasons for this conclusion. This first one is that a program to restore the buildings would compel the misuse of public funds that were obtained by approving a bond issue for educational purposes. The college delayed its contract for demolition so that those seeking to save the buildings might come forward with funds necessary to do so. If those funds had been available, the public school money would not have been needed. No source of funds for salvage and restoration is suggested by any of the witnesses, other than the school funds. The school funds were already dedicated and allocated to the College District's educational purposes. The testimony shows that the large sums of money required to restore the buildings would exhaust the College funds essential to its authorized educational purposes. Restoration of the buildings would also require the reconstruction of five times more space than is needed for educational purposes. The Antiquities Committee recognized this fact. A witness for the Committee stated that funds might be granted by the National Park Service provided the buildings are usable, but not if they are simply restored to be exhibited as old buildings. An architect testifying for the Committee expressed the opinion that the only source I know of for the money would be ... the Community College.... The President of the College said that the public would be considerably upset if it thought there was a possibility of diverting school funds to the restoration for non-educational purposes. Upon the basis of this kind of evidence from both those who favored and opposed the restoration of the buildings, the trial court quite properly concluded that the Act was unconstitutionally applied to a situation in which property and funds committed to a public trust for the benefit of the people in the school district would be arbitrarily diverted to a wholly different purpose. The second reason for our decision is that the buildings are incapable of restoration except upon an unreasonable expenditure of money. The inferior materials used in the original construction of the buildings requires complete reconstruction from the foundation up and at a cost greater than original new construction. The engineering and architectural evidence is that the only way to bring the buildings up to code standards or to save them is to rebuild them. Even the foundations would have to be rebuilt. The cost of rebuilding all three buildings would be in excess of 10,500,000 dollars. There is danger of collapse of the outside walls if reconstruction is undertaken. Estimates for the cost of reconstruction range from thirty-five dollars to eighty-one dollars per square foot. One witness for the Antiquities Committee said that anything can be built if you construct a building out of money, but the reconstruction would cost more than new construction. He stated that the diversion of the College District's funds from education to the preservation of the three buildings presented an unsolvable conflict. Another witness for the Antiquities Committee suggested that the solution to the construction problem was to gut the buildings, use the facades as curtain walls, and put a new structural frame inside. Sandstone and brick have been falling from the buildings since 1967. Both the sandstone and the windowsills have now been purposely chiseled away from the outside of the buildings to avoid their falling on people in the streets below. Of three hundred core samples taken from the building, all came out as dust, chips, or loose bricks. The buildings have already outlasted by more than forty years the time for which they were designed. The exterior walls support the floor load. One building, eight stories high, uses wood columns. All three buildings are at least nine times below the code requirements. The only use for the buildings suggested by the Antiquities Committee, even after the costly rebuilding would be as commercial office space. The buildings cannot be made usable for educational purposes. Classrooms with many occupants, books, and furniture would impose weight loads that the buildings could not bear even if restored. If usable as commercial rented space, there would be a continuing financial burden to the College District. For example, one building could be restored at a cost of 6,000,000 dollars and then rented for commercial purposes with a maximum return of no more than 2.98 percent. But leasing for business purposes would be difficult because the commercial offices would be in the midst of an inappropriate academic community. That part of downtown Dallas already has an eighteen to twenty percent vacancy rate for its buildings. From this record, there is no substantial evidence that the buildings, even after reconstruction and renovation could be usable for educational purposes. The Antiquities Committee confronts the trial court's judgment with the contention that the College District, as a political subdivision of the state is subordinate to the powers of the Antiquities Committee; has no contract or property rights which are protectable against the Committee's superior powers. We need not in this case, decide which of two state agencies is charged with the higher trust. In this case that question would cast the educational needs of the state's citizens against the preservation of the 1910 buildings described above. The Committee, relying upon the language of Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 40, 52 L.Ed. 151 (1907), argues that the State is supreme, and its legislative body... may do as it will, unrestrained by any provision of the Constitution of the United States. That expression of statism satisfies neither the protections of the United States Constitution or the Texas Constitution. The United States Supreme Court has closely restricted Hunter's broad and loose language in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960). Justice Frankfurter, writing for the court in Gomillion, circumscribed its dicta by an analysis of the matters before the court in Hunter and wrote: In short, the cases that have come before this Court regarding legislation by States dealing with their political subdivisions fall into two classes: (1) those in which it is claimed that the State, by virtue of the prohibition against impairment of the obligation of contract (Art. I, § 10) and of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, is without power to extinguish, or alter the boundaries of, an existing municipality; and (2) in which it is claimed that the State has no power to change the identity of a municipality whereby citizens of a pre-existing municipality suffer serious economic disadvantage. 364 U.S. 342-343, 81 S.Ct. 128. In a society when so many rights are subject to the regulation of administrative agencies, Gomillion brought the plenary power doctrine of Hunter under appropriate limitations, stating: a correct reading of the seemingly unconfined dicta of Hunter and kindred cases is not that the State has plenary power to manipulate in every conceivable way, for every conceivable purpose, the affairs of its municipal corporations, but rather that the State's authority is unrestrained by the particular prohibitions of the Constitution considered in those cases. The Texas law has developed in a similar fashion. One agency of the state does not possess powers to divest vested property and contract rights of another state agency unrestrained by the particular prohibitions of the Constitution. In Milam County v. Bateman, 54 Tex. 163 (1880), the legislature granted land to the county for public school purposes. Subsequently, the legislature took this land from the county and transferred it to private individuals. This court held that the legislature could not do this. The legislature's extensive control over its subdivisions' political rights was recognized, but it was held that a subdivision's property rights, are protected by the same constitutional guarantees which shield the property of individuals. 54 Tex. at 166. Milam County went on to state that, the purpose for which the property was originally acquired shall, as far as circumstances will admit, be kept in view; and that it shall not arbitrarily be diverted as in the case before us, to private parties and to a wholly different purpose. 54 Tex. at 166. Love v. City of Dallas, 120 Tex. 351, 40 S.W.2d 20 (1931) faced the issue whether the legislature had plenary power over a school district's property and functions. The question in Love was whether a school district must, as the legislature had enacted, use its funds to educate non-residents of the local district. Writing for the court, Chief Justice Cureton rejected the idea that the legislature has plenary powers over its creature when the school district holds its property as trustee for the public. This court held, instead, that the school district's property must be used for the purposes for which it was acquired. This court stated that the school district: has no contract right to exist as a corporation, but the public that it represents has a vested right in the municipal property acquired for its benefit, and is entitled to demand that such property be applied to its uses. 40 S.W.2d at 27. Love cited with approval the principle enunciated in 24 Ruling Case Law, Schools §§ 45-47 (1919), that school funds and property are trust funds for educational purposes; consequently, they should not: be diverted to other even though closely kindred uses, no matter how meritorious the project may appear to be either in its practical or ethical or sentimental aspects. Even the legislature, itself, the fountain head of matters educational, cannot divert school funds to other uses. 40 S.W.2d at 27. Since the Antiquities Committee's application of section 6 diverts the buildings to uses other than educational purposes, Love demands that we hold section 6 unconstitutional as applied. On the basis of the trial court's findings that section 6 of the Antiquities Code is both unconstitutional and unconstitutionally applied, we affirm the trial court judgment. GREENHILL, C. J., concurs with an opinion. DENTON, J., dissents in an opinion in which DANIEL, JOHNSON and YARBROUGH, JJ., join.