Court Opinion

ID: 9674536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:30:17.631449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:28.011835
License: Public Domain

MAUZY, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in all respects with the majority opinion. My only objective in this opinion is to take issue with the concurring opinion.
Both the Senate sponsor and the House sponsor of House Bill 417 wanted to include breach of implied warranties in the *362bill when it was being considered by the legislature in 1973. However, the Attorney General of Texas had entered into a political agreement to not include implied warranties in an effort to have the legislature enact a “consensus” bill. I was the Senate sponsor of H.B. 417 and I am well aware of the compromises and political horse trading engaged in by the Attorney General of Texas at the time the bill was passed. I fail to see how those political compromises that were so necessary to achieve a worthwhile result in the legislative process 14 years ago can in any way be construed as “an improper excursion into the legislative arena.”
The concurring opinion asks how this case is any different from Dennis v. Allison, 698 S.W.2d at 94. The answer to that question is that the makeup of this court has changed. Predictability and stability in our law is not to be maintained at the cost of being wrong. Two wrong decisions do not make a right decision. ■ The simple truth of the matter is that the dissent was right in 1985 and the majority was wrong. The people, speaking through the elective process, have constituted a new majority of this court which has not only the power but the duty to correct the incorrect conclusion arrived at by the then-majority in 1985 on this question. “Law must be stable and yet it cannot stand still.” Roscoe Pound, Interpretations of Legal History 1 (1923).
Finally, not even the author of the concurring opinion can dispute that this court must be amenable to the needs of our citizens. We must be willing to expand or limit the law dependent upon the perceived ills of a changing society. We must also be able to review even the most recent of decisions to determine if the rationales contained therein are still appropriate. Any other policy would be to insure a stasis in the laws of this State and would eventually deny the rights of the people whom we represent. It requires a great deal of intestinal fortitude to overrule decisions as recent as Dennis v. Allison, 698 S.W.2d 94 (Tex.1985), and G-W-L, Inc. v. Robichaux, 643 S.W.2d 392 (Tex.1982). We as a court, however, cannot swerve from our ultimate duty as arbiters of legislative intent. Arguments that seem logical and unassailable in one case are not always applicable or desirable under different facts or after time has passed. So it is today. Our decisions in Dennis and Robichaux were arguably correct when made, but do not reflect the rights which this court believes merit protection from unwarranted intrusion at this time. To follow the concurring opinion here would only aid those persons who are shoddy and slovenly in their work and would limit the rights of our citizens for redress under the law.
“Cessante Ratione Legis cessat ipsa Lex.” (Co.Litt. 70 b.). “Reason is the soul of the law, and when the reason of any particular law ceases, so does the law itself.” 7 Rep. 69; per Willes, C.J., Davis v. Powell, Willes, 46, cited arg. 8 C.B. 786, (E.C.L.R. 65).
It is a well settled rule that the law varies with the varying reasons on which it is founded. This is expressed by the maxim, “cessante ratione, cessat ipsa lex.” This means that no law can survive the reasons on which it is founded. It needs no statute to change it; it abrogates itself. If the reasons on which a law rests are overborne by opposing reasons, which in the progress of society gain a controlling force, the old law, though still good as an abstract principle, and good in its application to some circumstances, must cease to apply as a controlling principle to the new circumstances.
Loomis, J., Beardsley v. City of Hartford, 50 Conn. 529, 541 (1883).