Court Opinion

ID: 9667217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:38:42.641432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:36.054080
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
We granted the petition for discretionary-review in this cause to reexamine the rationale and holding of Compton v. State, 607 S.W.2d 246 (Tex.Cr.App.1979) (Opinion on State’s Motion for Rehearing). The majority opinion, however, accepts Compton and simply finds the evidence is not sufficient to show that Jervis White, the alleged owner, had “some right of possession” in the burglarized vehicle. I would delve deeper into the matter.
“Without the effective consent of the owner” is an element of several penal offenses denounced by provisions of our penal code. An owner is a person “who has title to the property, possession of the property, whether lawful or not, or a greater right to possession than the [suspect].” V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(24) and (2). By definition “person” includes a corporation. Id.Aa)(27). Article 21.08, V.A.C.C.P., and its forerunners have long provided: “When one person owns the property, and another person has possession, the ownership thereof may be alleged to be in either.”1
Early on the Court held that similar statutory language “evidently refers to individuals, and does not embrace companies or corporations,” thus relegating it to the common law rule. Thurmond v. The State, 30 Tex.App. 539, 17 S.W. 1098 (Ct. App.1891); White v. The State, 24 Tex. App. 231, 5 S.W. 857, 858 (Ct.App.1887). Though the language used was (and still is) permissive in nature, the Court determined that “the better rule of pleading in charging theft of such property [actually owned by a corporation] is always to charge both ownership and possession in such natural person.” Osborne v. State, 93 Tex.Cr.R. 54, 245 S.W. 928, 929 (1922), quoting at length from Frazier v. The State, 18 Tex. App. 434, 440-443 (Ct.App.1885), and also relying on Thurmond v. State, supra.2
Before enactment of the new penal code the Court continued to encourage following that “better rule of pleading.” See, e.g., Walling v. State, 437 S.W.2d 563, 564 (Tex. Cr.App.1969). However, under the new penal code, as pointed out in the majority opinion, the Court has often said that it is “the better pleading practice to allege ownership in a natural person acting for the corporation,” Eaton v. State, 533 S.W.2d 33, 34 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); see also Cross v. State, 590 S.W.2d 510, 511 (Tex.Cr.App. 1979) and Compton v. State, supra, at 250 (“the better pleading practice is to allege ‘special’ ownership in a natural person acting for the corporation”).3
The Court has been trying to solve the wrong problem — that of “findpng] any one individual in any given large corporation who can meet all the criteria of ‘possession’...,” Compton, supra, at 251. The solutions thus far have not taken in account that the problem perceived under the 1879 code of criminal procedure no longer exists under the present code when construed in harmony with related provisions of the new penal code.
With definitions now provided by the new penal code for every significant aspect of the element “without the effective con*148sent of the owner,” particularly that “owner” includes a corporation, courts are no longer relegated to looking to the common law for “the better rule of pleading.” We may justifiably consider a corporation a “person” within the meaning of Article 21.-08, supra, owning property by having title, possession or a greater right to possession to it, as contemplated by V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 1.07(a)(24). Then in that rare case, where another person actually possesses corporate property, in the sense it is not then and there in the actual care, custody, control or management of an agent of the corporation, a pleader may allege it either way.
Such a construction would eliminate the utter fiction of Compton v. State, supra, that an employee of a corporation has “a greater right to possession” of corporate personal property than a stranger to the corporation. See Opinion Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part in Compton, supra, at 253-257; McGee v. State, 572 S.W.2d 723 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). It would also ease the strain of finding “possession” in a managing or supervisory employee and then pretending that such employee is an “owner” of personalty actually owned by the corporate employer. See, e.g., Compton, supra, (first part of opinion on rehearing).
Should a corporation be alleged as owner having title to, possession of or a greater right of possession—depending on the facts and nature of the property in question— proof of lack of effective consent by the corporation may be made by any appropriate agent of the corporation under the circumstances. Thus in Compton, for example, J. Howard Coonen, himself, along with other corporate employees who were witnesses, could have testified to substantially the same facts, as well as any others relevant, to prove that the corporate employer never gave effective consent for Compton to “exercise control over property other than real property” that, without dispute, was owned by International Harvester. Similarly, Charles Minyard, regional supervisor for a petroleum corporation, in Eaton v. State, 533 S.W.2d 33 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), and Sue Bergner, assignment supervisor with Southwestern Bell, in Cross v. State, 590 S.W.2d 510 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), could easily have made the requisite proof that the respective corporation did not give effective consent for Eaton to torch its service station, nor for Cross to steal its commemorative watch.
In the case at bar the proof was close at hand. A certified certificate of title to the burglarized vehicle proves ownership in the corporation. Whoever supervises the warehouse testifies that when not in use corporate vehicles are left in his charge at the warehouse for safe keeping, and that appellant broke into and entered the vehicle without consent of the corporation given by and through him.
Compton v. State, 607 S.W.2d 246 (Tex. Cr.App.1979) was wrongly decided. Compton and its progeny should be overruled.
For these reasons I join the judgment of the Court.
ODOM and MILLER, JJ., join.
Before the court en banc.

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.

. “To have been sufficient, the indictment should have alleged the property to have been owned by the corporation, setting out the fact that it was incorporated, and that the property was taken from the possession of some one who was holding the same for said corporation without the consent of the party holding for the corporation ... In all cases of theft it is necessary to prove want of consent of the owner or party holding in order to justify a conviction. Want of consent of the owner is one of the essential elements of theft.”

.Just why the Court dropped "and possession" in its restatement of “the better pleading practice" has not been explained, but perhaps the thought was that the definition of "owner” included "ownership" through possession of the property.