Court Opinion

ID: 9759357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:13:45.431372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:01.514600
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
STEAKLEY, Justice.
We ruled in the original opinion that as a matter of law the subject property was not exclusively owned by the Authority under the manner of its acquisition; and that for this reason the property was not exempt from taxation under Article VIII, Sec. 2(a) of the Constitution and the enabling statute, Article 7150, Sec. 4. The Authority in its Motion for Rehearing urges, in effect, that, nonetheless, the property is tax exempt under Article XI, Sec. 9 of the Constitution which provides:
The property of counties, cities and towns, owned and held only for public purposes, such as public buildings and the sites therefor, fire engines and the furniture thereof, and all property used, or intended for extinguishing fires, public grounds and all other property devoted exclusively to the use and benefit of the public shall be exempt from forced sale and from taxation, .
*779It is to be noted that this provision speaks specifically of “property of counties, cities and towns”; but it was held in Lower Colorado River Authority v. Chemical Bank & Trust Co., 144 Tex. 326, 190 S.W.2d 48 (1945), that the property of the Lower Colorado River Authority is exempt from taxation as a governmental agency. Later, in Leander Independent School District v. Cedar Park Water Supply Corporation, 479 S.W.2d 908 (Tex.1972), we wrote:
A reading of these two sections indicates that the framers of the Constitution contemplated: (1) that Art. XI, Sec. 9, would apply only to property owned by counties, cities and towns, and would operate to exempt the property of these political subdivisions provided it was devoted exclusively to a public use; and (2) that other property publicly owned and used for a public purpose might be exempted by the Legislature under the provisions of Art. VIII, Sec. 2. It has been held, however, that Art. XI, Sec. 9, exempts all public property used for public purposes even though not owned by a county, city or town. Lower Colorado River Authority v. Chemical B. & T. Co., 144 Tex. 326, 190 S.W.2d 48.

. The holding in Lower Colorado River Authority will not be disturbed since it is now firmly embedded in our jurisprudence, but we do not feel compelled by the construction there given one provision of the Constitution to adopt what we regard as an erroneous interpretation of a clause in an entirely different section.
479 S.W.2d at 911, 913.
For our purposes here, however, suffice it to note that the Court in Lower Colorado River Authority referred with approval to Daugherty v. Thompson, 71 Tex. 192, 9 S.W. 99 (1888), where, it was stated, the Court “announced in unmistakable language that the legislature is without power to tax any property publicly owned and held only for public purposes and devoted exclusively to the use and benefit of the public.” (Emphasis added).
Apart, then, from the matter of reconsidering the holding in Lower Colorado River Authority, that the thrust of Article XI, Sec. 9 of the Constitution reaches beyond, “counties, cities and towns” to any governmental agency, it is sufficient for our purposes here that, for the reasons stated in our original opinion, the property in question is not held only for public purposes and is not devoted exclusively to the use and benefit of the public.
The Motions for Rehearing are overruled.