Court Opinion

ID: 9768065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:40:58.473677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:36.292512
License: Public Domain

STEPHENSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the statement in the majority opinion that the narrow question before this court is to determine whether the county court at law had jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions presented to it at the time it entered the order complained of. I am of the opinion that it did have jurisdiction.
To state my position as simply as possible, this is an action under Article 2524-1, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St, the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, to have the court construe a new statute, Article 3266b. It is agreed that the interpretation of a statute is one of the many questions that may be raised in an action brought under Article 2524-1.
Section 1 of Article 2524 — 1 provides in part: “Courts of record within their respective jurisdictions shall have power . . . . ” (emphasis supplied)
Article 3266a, Section 1, now gives the district courts and the county courts at law concurrent jurisdiction in eminent domain cases. However, Section 3 provides that if a county has a county court at law, the petition for eminent domain shall be filed in the county court at law except where otherwise specifically provided by law.
Apparently this is a question of first impression in this state and I feel that it is logical to conclude that it is within the “respective jurisdictions” of the county court at law to construe an eminent domain statute. See Hilley v. Hilley, 305 S.W.2d 204 (Tex.Civ.App., Waco, 1957, error ref. n. r. e.), and Mason & Mason v. Brown, 182 S.W.2d 729 (Tex.Civ.App., Dallas, 1944, error ref. w. o. m.).
If the county court at law had jurisdiction of the declaratory judgment suit as stated in the majority opinion, it had authority to issue a writ of injunction to enforce its jurisdiction. Article 5, Section 16 of the Constitution. Article 1957, V.A.C.S.
I would not dismiss the suit.