Court Opinion

ID: 9647128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:24:19.906469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:45.797456
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
joined by CORNYN, Justice,
dissenting.
It is undisputed that the City of Wilmer is a Type A general law municipality with less than 5,000 inhabitants. It is also undisputed that the addition of the annexed territory will cause the City to exceed the four square mile surface area limit applicable to its incorporation. See Tex.Loc.Gov’t Code § 5.901(2). The Legislature’s obvious intent in placing surface area limitations upon a municipality’s incorporation was to limit the amount of territory over which a small number of people could exert control. See City of Deer Park v. State ex rel. Shell Oil Co., 259 S.W.2d 284, 287 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1953), aff'd on other grounds, 154 Tex. 174, 275 S.W.2d 77 (1954). Because the Court’s holding today contravenes this intent, I dissent.
Admittedly, when sections 5.901 and 43.024 of the Local Government are considered separately, it appears that section 5.901 applies only to incorporations, and section 43.024 applies only to annexations. However, considering the statutes together, in light of their legislative history and that of their predecessor statutes, I cannot agree with the Court’s interpretation. I disagree that the Legislature intentionally omitted language from section 43.024 which would restrict a city’s annexations to the territorial limitations applicable to its incorporation. The fact that the express limitation in the statute governing annexations by Type B municipalities is not found in the statute for Type A municipalities does not evince an intent that annexations by Type A municipalities have no limits. See TexLoc.Gov’t Code §§ 43.024, 43.025.
For one thing, the statutes governing annexations by Type A and Type B municipalities were enacted at different times. The Legislature enacted article 974 of the Revised Civil Statutes (now codified at Tex.Loc. Gov’t Code § 43.024), which governs Type A municipality annexations, in 1875. Act approved Mar. 15, 1875,14th Leg., 2d R.S., eh. C, § 155, 1875 Tex.Gen.Laws 113, 156, reprinted in 8 H.P.N. Gammel, Laws of Texas 485, 528 (1898). Twenty years later, the Legislature enacted article 971 of the Re*662vised Civil Statutes (now codified at Tex.Loc. Gov’t Code § 5.901), which places surface area limitations on general law municipality-incorporations. Act of Feb. 28, 1895, 24th Leg., R.S., ch. 16, § 1, 1895 Tex.Gen.Laws 17,17, reprinted in 10 H.P.N. Gammel, Laws of Texas 747, 747 (1898). Consequently, article 974 did not expressly refer to the territorial limitations in article 971 because article 971 did not exist when the Legislature enacted article 974. However, article 1135 of the Revised Civil Statutes (now codified at Tex. Loc.Gov’t Code § 43.025), the statute which applies to Type B municipality annexations and which expressly refers to article 971’s territorial limits on incorporation, was enacted in 1903, eight years after the enactment of article 971. Act approved Mar. 31, 1903, 28th Leg., R.S., ch. LXXXIX, § 1, 1904 Tex. Gen.Laws 116, 116. Thus, it cannot be inferred from the express reference to size limitations in article 1135, and the lack of any reference in article 974, that the Legislature intended not to impose article 971’s size limitations upon Type A municipalities. See City of Northlake v. East Justin Joint Venture, 873 S.W.2d 413, 419 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1994, writ denied).
The strongest argument that the Legislature intentionally omitted language from a statute is when the statute including the disputed language was enacted earlier in time. The enactment of a statute including certain language after the enactment of a statute which does not include the language is at best an ambiguous indication of the Legislature’s intent. The Legislature’s lack of cross-references in article 974 and its express incorporation of article 971’s restrictions in article 1135 is more indicative of the relative timing of the statutes’ enactments than of legislative intent. See City of Northlake, 873 S.W.2d at 419.
I find persuasive the court’s analysis in City of Deer Park. In that case, the City of Deer Park attempted to convert from a Type B municipality to a Type A municipality and to annex territory belonging to Shell Oil Company. City of Deer Park, 259 S.W.2d at 285-86. The court held that Deer Park’s attempt to convert to a Type A municipality was void. Id. at 286. Moreover, because Deer Park was still a Type B municipality, article 1135 (now Tex.Loc.Gov’t Code § 43.025) governed the annexation and rendered it void. City of Deer Park, 259 S.W.2d at 287. The court went on to note, however, that even if the city had successfully converted to a Type A municipality, the annexation would have been void under article 974 (now Tex.Loc.Gov’t Code § 43.024) because it would have caused the city to exceed the surface area limits of article 971 (now Tex. Loc.Gov’t Code § 5.901). City of Deer Park, 259 S.W.2d at 287; accord City of Northlake, 873 S.W.2d at 419. The Deer Park court stated:
[I]t is quite clear to us that the intended purpose and legal effect of Art. 971 [now Tex.Loc.Gov’t Code § 5.901] was to prohibit any city or town in this State from thereafter including within its corporate limits a superficial area [exceeding the area limits of section 5.901]. If such was not the intended purpose and effect of such legislation and if any city or town, after its original incorporation, can continue by successive annexations to increase its superficial area indefinitely without regard to the number of its inhabitants, then the enactment ... was vain, futile and meaningless.
259 S.W.2d at 287 (emphasis added). Allowing a municipality to circumvent the requirements of section 5.901 through subsequent annexations frustrates section 5.901’s purpose and renders it a nullity. Under the Court’s interpretation of sections 5.901 and 43.024, a municipality, even if it was not growing in population, could gradually expand its boundaries to encompass an unlimited surface area.
Furthermore, the Court errs in failing to give effect to the Deer Park construction of sections 5.901 and 43.024 when determining legislative intent. See Coastal Indus. Water Auth. v. Trinity Portland Cement Div., Gen. Portland Cement Co., 563 S.W.2d 916, 918 (Tex.1978); Moss v. Gibbs, 370 S.W.2d 452, 458 (Tex.1963); Rail v. Morriss, 95 S.W.2d 738, 739 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1936, writ ref'd). If a judicial interpretation of a statute is “unacceptable to the Legislature, a simple remedy is available by the process of *663legislative amendment.” Mormon v. Mustang Aviation, Inc., 430 S.W.2d 182, 186 (Tex.1968). When the Legislature re-enaets a statute without substantive change, “it is presumed that the [Legislature knew and adopted the interpretation placed on the original act and intended the new enactment to receive the same construction.” Coastal, 563 S.W.2d at 918. Deer Park was decided in 1953, more than forty years ago. Since that time, the Legislature has convened numerous times, has enacted the Municipal Annexation Act1 (currently codified in chapters 42 and 43 of the Local Government Code; formerly Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat. art. 970a), and has codified the statutes in the Local Government Code.2 In all that time, however, the Legislature has not amended section 43.024. By holding that section 5.901 does not apply to annexations by a Type A municipality, the Court today accomplishes by judicial decision something which is more appropriately a policy decision for the Legislature. Moss, 370 S.W.2d at 458.
A Type A municipality should not be able to exceed the surface area limits applicable to its original incorporation through subsequent annexations. Because the addition of the annexed territory will cause the City of Wilmer to exceed the four square mile size limit applicable to its incorporation, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render judgment that the challenged annexation ordinances are void.

. The Legislature enacted the Municipal Annexation Act in 1963, in large part to curb the virtually unlimited power of home rule municipalities to unilaterally annex territory. Texas Legislative Council, Municipal Annexation: A Report to the 57th Legislature, No. 56-6, at 4 (Dec. 1960). The then-current limitations on annexations by general law municipalities were viewed as sufficient to prevent any potential abuse in their annexation practices. Id.

. When the Legislature codified these statutes in 1987, it did not add references in section 43.024 to the territorial limits of section 5.901 because the codification was not intended as a substantive change to the statutes. See TexLoc.Gov't Code § 1.001(a) (stating that the Local Government Code was enacted as a part of the state’s statutoiy revision program which “contemplates a topic-by-topic revision of the state’s general and permanent statute law without substantive change ” (emphasis added)).