Court Opinion

ID: 9683274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:25:40.0239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.791728
License: Public Domain

ON STATE’S PETITIONS FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
At issue here is sufficiency of a caption to an act of the Legislature, tested against the first sentence of Article III, § 35, Constitution of the State of Texas, viz:
*949“No bill ... shall contain more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.”1
We are not directly concerned with the second sentence.2 It assumes that some subject has been expressed in the title. Thus, unless they touch on the meaning of the first sentence, decisions of the courts construing the second sentence are not too helpful in determining when a single subject has been sufficiently expressed.3
Reproduced in 1 General and Special Laws, 67th Legislature, Regular Session, 1981, the caption of the bill at issue is, as finally enacted:
“An act relating to offenses and criminal penalties under the Texas Controlled Substances Act.”
Id., at 696.
As the majority reads it, that phrase “refers to changes in penalties and offenses ...,” P. 947. On the other hand, the dissent says the caption “puts a reader on notice of the treatment of one subject and alerts him to [ascertain] the details of that subject,” characterizing it as a “signal.” P. 953. In my view “relating to” does not mean “changes in” nor is it enough under the first sentence of § 35 that a caption gives a signal.4
Each constitution from 1845 through 1869 contained an identical general provision: “Every law enacted by the Legislature shall embrace but one object, and that shall be expressed in the title.” The convention that drafted what became § 35 in the Constitution of 1876 revised the provision by changing “object” to “subject” and added the second sentence. When called upon to fathom that change, courts “presumed that the convention had some reason,” and opined that “the word ‘subject’ may have been thus substituted as less restrictive than ‘object.’ ” Stone v. Brown, 54 Tex. 330, 341 (1881); see Day Land & Cattle Co. v. State, 68 Tex. 526, 4 S.W. 865 (1887).
The metamorphosis of judicial understanding in this regard transformed “the subject-matter of the projected law,” Adams & Wickes v. San Angelo Water Works Co., 86 Tex. 485, 25 S.W. 605, 606 (1894) into “the nature of each particular bill,” Consolidated Underwriters v. Kirby Lumber Co., 267 S.W. 703, 705 (Tex.Comm.App.1924), see *950Gulf Ins. Co. v. James, 185 S.W.2d 966, 9705 (1945), to “the general purpose,” State v. Rodriguez, 213 S.W.2d 877, 879 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1948, no writ history); State v. Rope, 419 S.W.2d 890, 899 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1967, writ ref'd n.r.e.).
From prior cases the dissenting opinion gleans a new “standard,” to wit: “Notice to prevent surprise or fraud in legislation.” But such prevention is merely an end sought by the constitutional mandate, not a definition to be applied to a given caption. So we look to the caption itself to determine whether it conveys to the reader information such that affords “a ready and reasonably accurate means of knowledge of the contents ...,” White v. State, supra, at 664. . Ipso facto, a caption that sufficiently expresses the subject of an act will not surprise or defraud, but one that fails adequately to inform well may. Judges do not resort to personal knowledge of “public debate” in order to evaluate surprise or fraud.6
The instant caption says only that the bill is an act relating to something else. It does not even tell the reader that the act is to amend any part of the Texas Controlled Substances Act. As stated it gives no hint of what is its “general purpose” — its proposed content. Facially abstract and ambiguous, the caption fails to convey to the reader that character and quality of information the first sentence of § 35 requires for fair notice to “legislator, lawyer or ‘man on the street,’ ” Schlichting v. Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, supra, 310 S.W.2d at 561.
Accordingly, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
ODOM, J., joins.

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

. “But if any subject shall be embraced in an act, which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof, as shall not be so expressed.”

. Many just such opinions are cited and discussed by the majority and dissent. In, e.g., Day Land & Cattle Co. v. State, 68 Tex. 526, 4 S.W. 865 (1887), the question was whether a caption contained more than one subject; however, though not given in the opinion, the caption there under consideration easily met both tests, for it read: “An act to set aside the public lands embraced within the territorial limits of the County of Greer for educational purposes, and for the payment of the public debt.” Acts 1879, 16th Leg., ch. 16, p. 16, 8 Gammel’s Laws of Texas 1316. Similar is Do-eppenschmidt v. I. & G.N. Rr. Co., 100 Tex. 532, 101 S.W. 1080 (1907): “An act to prohibit railroad and railway companies ... from permitting Johnson grass or Russian thistles from going to seed upon their right of way ...” id., 101 S.W. at 1081.
Indeed, until fairly recently in drafting captions accepted legislative technique described a bill as “An act to ...” However, turning a verb into a participle sufficed in some instances. Thus, in City of Brownsville v. Public Utility Commission, 616 S.W.2d 402 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1981, writ refd n.r.e.), mentioned in both opinions, the caption stated at the outset that it was an act “defining public utilities and providing for their regulation ...” That is a clear expression of the subject of the bill.

.Variously stated, the central theme of the decisions is that the constitutional mandate under consideration “is to facilitate and protect the legislative process by affording legislators and other interested people a ready and reasonably accurate means of knowledge of the contents of bills without their having to read the full text.” White v. State, 440 S.W.2d 660, 664 (Tex.Cr.App.1969), quoting approvingly from Shannon v. Rogers, 159 Tex. 29, 314 S.W.2d 810, 814 (1958); “[ojbviously this purpose is not accomplished, if the caption, for lack of sufficient provision therein ... does not convey to the reader the necessary information,” Schlichting v. Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, 158 Tex. 279, 310 S.W.2d 557, 561 (1958).

. “We are of the opinion that the language used in the title of the Act in question ... is not sufficient to properly advise the Legislature and the public as to the subject of the Act.”

. “[I]t is well settled that the scope of the exercise of the function of judicial notice is not coextensive with the personal knowledge of the individual judge. Personal knowledge is not judicial knowledge.” Ray, Law of Evidence (Third Edition) § 152, 1 Texas Practice 195-196.