Court Opinion

ID: 9834134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:19:28.480668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.900678
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
 In addition to the grounds heretofore urged, appellant in its' motion for rehearing insists that the injunction granted is void because the appellee gave no injunction bond, and that same is required under article 4649, R. S. Prior to the Revision of 1925, this article of the statute provided: “If the state be complainant in any petition for injunction, no bond shall be required.” Rev. St. 1911, art. 4654. This last-quoted provision was omitted from the 1925 revision, and appellant contends that it manifests a clear legislative intent that thereafter the state, like any other litigant, should be required to give bond before such injunction might issue. Generally an injunction issued without bond is void. Ex parte Coward, 110 Tex. 587, 222 S. W. 531; 32 C. J. 312. And it is clear, we think, that, when the Railroad Commission, acting in its official capacity as an arm of the government, or an agency of the state, and by and through the Attorney General, brings such action, it does so on behalf of the state, and to all intents and purposes the state is itself a party to such litigation. See Herring v. Houston Nat. Exch. Bank, 113 Tex. 264, 253 S. W. 813; Stephens v. T. & P. Ry. Co.. 100 Tex. 177, 97 S. W. 309.
Whatever may’have been the purpose of the Legislature in omitting from article 4649, R. S., the provision expressly exempting the state from giving bond in injunction cases generally, we know of no authority empowering the Railroad Commission to execute a bond binding upon the state. Certainly no suit could be brought against the state on such a bond without exi>ress legislative consent, were such bond authorized to be made by the commission. We can see no more reason why the commission should -indemnify oil operators against loss that might result to them from the enforcement by the commission of its orders in one manner than in another. Certainly the state is not liable for property damage to operators resulting from a proper regulation of them by proration of their oil production. The commission is vested by statute with full power to do this; and the appellant is without recourse against the state, if in doing so in a legal manner it inflicts an injury upon appellant. Such is the inherent power of the state in the exercise of its police power, against which the regulated industry has no recourse. The commission’s order in the instant case is presumed to be valid and legal, and we must so treat it until the contrary is shown in the manner provided by the statute. If the state is not liable for injuries resulting to appellant from the enforcement of such order, why should the state be required to give bond to protect appellant in the steps which the Railroad Commission is authorized by law to use to effec--*377tuate such enforcement? We can see no logical reason why it should.
Section 4, p. 51, 1st Called Sess., 42d Legislature, 1931 (Vernon’s Ann. Civ. St. art. 6049c, § 4) was obviously and expressly intended to give to the commission an effective method for enforcing its orders. The same construction placed by us on these statutes in our original opinion with reference to giving notice before granting an injunction would, we think, apply with equal cogency to the giving of a bond. The fact that the Legislature provided that no injunction should issue against the commission at the instance of an oil operator, without first giving notice and making bond, and at the same time provided that an injunction might issue at the instance of the commission against an offending operator without requiring of the state either notice or bond, necessarily implies, we think, that such bond was not required.
An additional reason exists why appellant’s contention cannot be sustained. If the Railroad Commission or the Attorney General has no power to give a bond binding on the state, and such injunction cannot issue without it, that provision of the statute becomes a nullity. The act should be so construed, if same can reasonably be done, as to sustain its validity. The interpretation so placed upon it by us gives it vitality. That contended for by appellant nullifies it. And, where susceptible of a reasonable implication which would sustain its validity, it is our duty to so construe it.
The other contentions made by appellant in its motion were considered by us in our original opinion, and further discussion of them here pretermitted. The motion is therefore overruled.
Overruled.