Court Opinion

ID: 9830017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:49:17.212467+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:10.940828
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In the original opinion we did not comment on the decision of Justice Hurt, in the case of Wilson v. State, 16 Tex. App. 501. The case was presented and argued orally upon the original hearing, and we read and re-read and thoroughly discussed the holding. Annie Wilson had been tried as a vagrant; she was again charged with the same offense and pleaded a former acquittal, and the trial judge, in a part of his charge said:
“You are instructed that, under the charter of the city of Pallas, all ordinances which impose a penalty for their infraction must be published at least 10 days before the same can be enforced, and it is incumbent on the defendant to show that the ordinance under which she was [formerlyj acquitted was published the requisite number of days,” etc.
Justice Hurt said:
“The presumption is that this ordinance had been published the requisite number of days, and it devolved upon the party whose rights were antagonized thereby to show that the ordinance had not been thus published.”
Appellant says:
“The above case, decided by Justice Hurt, is exactly in point and has never been overruled, and is correct and should be the controlling case in the decision of this case before this court.”
If counsel had been patient (possibly as much so as this court) in the investigation of this question, the “cocksureness” and implied strictures, evidenced in the argument on this motion for rehearing, would not probably be so manifest, irrespective of which is correct.
In the original opinion we recognized fully the proposition of the presumption of duty upon the part of officers. The Legislature, however, has seen fit to prescribe a quantum of proof, as indicated by article 819, for the courts of this state, for the establishment, prima facie, of the fact of publication. We ■were careful to say that this was not exclusive, neither is the method of proof suggested by article 821. Article 819, making the affidavit of the printer filed with the city secretary prima facie proof of publication in the courts of the state, was passed, in its present form, in 1889, amending article 486 of the Acts of 1S79. The difference material to this question is that article 486 of the Revised Statutes of 1879 prescribed that the publisher’s affidavit would be conclusive proof. Justice Hurt had under consideration a city charter, in 1883, which prescribed a 10-day publication — evidently without any further prescription as to the character of proof referable to publication. Article 341 of the Revised Statutes of 1S79, under title 17, regarding “Cities and Towns,” prescribed that:
“The provisions of this title shall not apply to any city until such provisions have been accepted by the city council in accordance with the preceding article.”
Under the Constitution of 1876, art. 11, § 5, cities having more than 10,000 inhabitants may operate under special charters granted by the Legislature. The Supreme Court said, in the case of Dallas v. Western Electric Co., 83 Tex. 245, 18 S. W. 552:
“It is the purpose of the Constitution that the grant of power in the charter of a city having more than ten thousand inhabitants shall *253be complete without any reference to any other law,” etc.
Justice Hurt, in the Wilson Case, did not have before him article 819, passed in 1889, prescribing what shall be prima facie proof of publication in the courts of this state; nor manifestly was he considering article 486 of the Bevised Statutes of 1879, mating the affidavit conclusive proof. The question of conclusive proof was not before him. We are not holding that the statute in regard to cities and towns, at the time Justice Hurt rendered his opinion, would not affect cities created by a special charter granted to the Legislature. It is manifest, however, that Justice Hurt was not considering either statute when he rendered his opinion; one of-them had not been enacted and the other had not the slightest application, but was considering the question of presumption derivable from the city charter of the city of Dallas, and the period of publication required with reference to the ordinance passed thereunder, and nothing further.
Article 819, in specifying the affidavit of the printer as sufficient prima facie evidence of proof of publication, is not addressed to the question of the passage of an ordinance by the city council; the passage of an ordinance and its publication (though it takes both to make a valid law) are distinct acts of that body. Hence, logically, when you produce the minptes of a city council, showing merely that an ordinance has been passed, have you further met the suggestion of the Legislature, with reference to prima facie proof of its publication? Did the Legislature mean, when it said that the publisher’s affidavit would be prima facie proof of publication, in all the courts of the state, that the mere presentation of the ordinance would be sufficient, without the affidavit, or without some equivalent proof at common law? If the charter of the city of Dallas merely prescribed that the ordinance should be published for 10 days before it could be enforced (and it is clear to us that that is all Justice Hurt was considering), without any further suggestion as to what would constitute prima facie proof of publication, there is force in the opinion on the theory of presumption, and the same might be pertinently applicable. The case we have here though was not before Justice Hurt, and the case that was before him is not before us. Here we have one bare fact, an ordinance in a minute book, which, if it had been published, the affidavit of the printer is presumably on file with the secretary of the corporation, and which would have afforded, under the statute, prima facie proof of publication. The Legislature must have intended that this, or some other equivalent method of prima facie proof, was necessary.
As to the case of City of Austin v. Walton, which appellant says has no imaginable application to this case, of course the facts are not the same, and the case is only cited as a major premise in connection with our interpretation of the statute for the conclusion which we thought would follow.
Appellant has no assignment whatever in this motion, but we thought it best, without minimizing in the slightest the importance of this question, though a county court case, to exhibit, as we conceived, the inapplicability of Justice Hurt’s opinion, which appellant thinks should have absolutely controlled this question.
We have carefully read the other authorities cited in the motion, and think they have no application whatever to the phraseology of our statute; and, believing that we correctly ruled the point upon the original hearing, we consequently overrule the motion.