Court Opinion

ID: 9770587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:11:08.47185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:23.562841
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Wilson,
joined by Chief Justice Hickman and Justices Garwood and Smith, dissenting.
We respectfully dissent from the decision of the majority for the reason that this Court does have jurisdiction to grant the relief prayed for if the Secretary of State’s duty is to forward one and only one list of delegates. Since the majority opinion holds that this Court has no jurisdiction we will limit this dissent to that question as the other point discussed in the majority opinion is unnecessary to our judgment.
This Court derives its power and responsibility in this matter from the following language of Sec. 3 of Art. V of our Texas Constitution:
“* * * The Supreme Court and the Justices thereof shall have power to issue writs of habeas corpus, as may be prescribed by law, and under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, the said courts and the Justices thereof may issue the writs of mandamus, procedendo, certiorari and such other writs, as may be necessary to enforce its jurisdiction. The Legislature may confer original jurisdiction on the Supreme Court to issue writs of quo warranto and mandamus in such cases as may be specified, except as against the Governor of the State.”
It is clear from this that we have no power to issue an original injunction except where it is in aid of jurisdiction already conferred by some other constitutional provision. Our problem becomes whether the action prayed for by relators can be accomplished by the writ of mandamus. We believe that the words writ of mandamus mean the power to compel a state *274official to do his duty and not the common law form of action known as mandamus.
We are in agreement that if the Secretary of State had refused to forward relators’ convention reports this Court under mandamus would have jurisdiction. We also agree that we could command the Secretary of State to forward one and not the other. Love v. Wilcox, 119 Texas 256, 28 S. W. 2d. 515; Seay v. Latham, 143 Texas 1, 182 S. W. 2d. 251, 155 A. L. R. 180. We disagree over the remedy used in Love v. Wilcox, supra, and Seay v. Latham, supra. The majority hold that what this Court did in those cases was to mandamus the sending forward of one list of electors and to enjoin the Secretary of State from forwarding the other list and that since the injunction was in aid of the jurisdiction to mandamus, it was constitutional. We think that, to the contrary, there was just one command and that the entire command was issued as a mandamus. (1)
High defines mandamus as:
“The modern writ of mandamus may be defined as a command issuing from a common-law court of competent jurisdiction, in the name of the state or sovereign, directed to some * * *, officer, * * *, requiring the performance of a particular duty therein specified, which duty results from the official station of the party to whom the writ is directed, or from operation of law.” High’s Extraordinary Legal Remedies (Second Ed.) p. 4.
*275By the words “writs of quo warranto and mandamus” our Constitution did not bring into our practice the common law form of action of mandamus prevalent in both England and the United States at the time. This clause of the Constitution was not an attempt to regulate pleading or procedure but was a grant of power and responsibility to this Court for the purpose of securing a speedy and final adjudication of important public questions. The constitutional words writ of mandamus mean power of mandamus, and the procedure for exercising that power can be determined in statutes and court rules.
The functions of both mandamus and injunction have overlapped in the past and an examination of the long history of both demonstrates that there has always been a borderland of overlapping functions. Yett v. Cook, 115 Texas 175, 268 S.W. 715, and 281 S.W. 843. This Court has in the past used its original jurisdiction of mandamus to restrict a public official from illegally performing his duty. In Seagraves v. Green, Com. App. opinion adopted, 116 Texas 220, 288 S. W. 417, the Court said:
“While mandamus, in general is a remedy whereby a person or officer is required to do something which he wrongfully declines to do, nevertheless in exceptional cases it may properly be given a restraining effect (Bacon’s Abr. tit. ‘Mandamus,’ D, 273; Ex parte Bradley 7 Wall. 364, 19 L. Ed. 214, 219), or one of reversal or amendment of a previous act (see Ex parte Secombe, 19 How. 13, 15 L. Ed. 565; Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, 25 L. Ed. 667; Yett v. Cook, 115 Texas 175, 268 S. W. 715, 281 S. W. 843, and authorities there cited.
We do not think that the following statement from the majority opinion is correct.
*276“* * * Writs of injunction were issued in the cases of Love v. Wilcox, supra, and Seay et al v. Latham, 143 Texas 1, 182 S. W. 2d 251 (155 A.L.R. 180) but only after the parties had shown themselves to be entitled to a writ of mandamus and only to make effective the judgment awarding the writ of mandamus.”
An examination of the entire judgment of this Court in both Love v. Wilcox and Seay v. Latham shows that in Love v. Wilcox our clerk was ordered to “Issue a peremptory writ of mandamus * * * commanding and requiring said respondents to proceed with their statutory duties as though the- resolutions of February 1, 1930, had not been adopted and specifically commanding said respondents and each of them to desist <md refrain from enforcing said resolutions in certifying names of candidates for the 1930 Democratic primaries * * *.” (Emphasis added.) In Seay v. Latham our clerk was ordered to issue a peremptory writ of mandamus “commanding and requiring him to * * * to certify * * * the names of the twenty-three nominees selected and approved by the Democratic Party at its September convention, and no others, as the nominees of the Party for presidential electors * * *.” (Emphasis added.) Nothing is said in either of these judgments about a writ of injunction. To think in terms of the need for two separate writs is a reversion to the rigid formulism of the early common law. The following language from Love v. Wilcox clearly shows that the court considered that our remedy at mandamus could include a command to cease and desist:
“* * * the law entitles relator to the relief he seeks to the extent of awarding to him a mandamus, commanding and requiring respondents to proceed with their statutory duties * * * and specifically commanding respondents and each of them to desist and refrain from enforcing said resolutions * * *.”
These three cases should be authority for defining our jurisdiction under mandamus as including both the positive and the negative of the same command — in this instance, to forward only one list of delegates. In other words, the command to forward one list only “and no other” does not require the issuance of two writs (mandamus and injunction) but can be achieved by mandamus alone.
Therefore we think it is our responsibility to take jurisdiction in the present case under the power to mandamus as that power has heretofore been defined by this court if the Secretary *277of State’s duty is to forward only one report from each county. If a breach of this duty is subject to mandamus, the Secretary of State should not be able to avoid the writ by complying with the positive and refusing to comply with the negative side of the same duty. We would hold that when the breach of an indivisible duty falls within the field of our jurisdiction under the writ of mandamus the whole of that duty and not just part of it is within our jurisdiction.
In drawing a formulistic distinction between two writs so as to defeat our jurisdiction in this case the majority is within the well established and ancient legal tradition that the courts allow private organizations to work out their own internal difficulties. In recent years the trend of the court decisions has been to remove political parties from the status of private organizations. The Legislature could impose no higher duty upon the courts than to keep pure our democratic processes. This Supreme Court is one of the most stable elements in our State Government and in our opinion our jurisdiction and power should not be so narrowly limited by giving the word mandamus in our State Constitution such a restricted definition.
Since the majority opinion is a decision that this Court lacks jurisdiction to decide the merits of the case, the Court plainly has no authority to proceed to decide the merits. The statements in the majority opinion on points other than jurisdiction are therefore no more than dicta and any such statements on our part would serve no proper purpose. We therefore express no opinion except upon jurisdiction.
Justices Hickman, Garwood and Smith join in this dissent.
Opinion delivered May 28, 1952.

l) There has never been such a rigid distinction between mandamus and injunction as the majority asserts. The legal writ of mandamus originated as a form of action for making effective the King’s prerogative and is more ancient than the injunction. Its function has varied considerably from century to century. As the common law grew, the various writs acquired a formal wording. The courts developed the habit of measuring legal rights in terms of the writs available to enforce them. From this grew the common-law theory of actions that there was no right of action unless there was a recognized form of writ by which it could be enforced. The majority opinion forces us into that same attitude of measuring our jurisdiction by the definition of a procedural writ. Foundation of Le'gal Liability, Street, Vol. Ill, ch. 3.
At common law both in England and in parts of the United States a mandamus suit was begun by the issuance of a writ commanding the official either to do his duty or show cause for not doing so, which first writ was known as the “alternative mandamus.” If the official refused to conform to the demand he had available several different pleas. If he filed an answer negativing the factual basis for the issuance of the writ, the Court would deny the writ. Then the parties might try the truth or falsity of the factual answer in the form of an action for damages. If this should result in a finding that the factual answer was false, a writ issued commanding the official to perform his duty. As has been pointed *275out in Townes Texas Pleading, 2d Ed. p. 570, this form of action was wholly inconsistent with the Texas form of pleading by petition and answer adopted in 1840. Of the various writs used in a mandamus action Judge Townes said:
“* * * That they came under the terms of the act rejecting the common law pleading seems equally clear. Notwithstanding this our courts, on the one hand, have refused to apply to these cases the simple system adopted in ordinary litigation; on the other hand have denied that the ‘ancient common law procedure’ is to be followed in all respects, and the result is no small amount of uncertainty as to the proper method of procedure. * * *”
The word “writ” as used at the Texas bar has always been a reference more to a form of remedy than a document with a set wording used by the clerk to convey the court’s command to an officer.