Court Opinion

ID: 9833738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:59:06.401682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.242291
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellee urges that article 7689a, cited in our original opinion, does not apply to this ease, since it was passed at the second called session of Thirty-Eighth Legislature, which adjourned May 15, 1923 — that the act was approved by the Governor on May 26th, ajad took effect 90 days after adjournment, on August 15th, as he claims, but really on ■ August 13th.
Trial was had and judgment rendered September 10, 1923. Certainly at that time the law was effective. Suit was filed December 19, 1922, and defendant’s answer was filed March 6, thereafter.
The Constitution of the state of Texas, art. 1, § 16, provides:
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made.”
Laws like article 7689a, are not ex post facto laws, as the latter pertain only to criminal xoroceedings. Sutherland v. De Leon, 1 Tex. 305, 46 Am. Dec. 100; Mellinger v. City of Houston, 68 Tex. 37, 3 S. W. 249. Nor can the act be said to be one impairing the obligation of contracts. Is it a retroactive law, and under the constitutional inhibition?. Ordinarily laws affecting remedies or questions of procedure are held not to be within the inhibition. Laws retrospective or retroactive are held to be such laws as destroy or impair rights vested in accordance with the laws of the land. De Cordova v. Galveston, 4 Tex. 484. In this case, the Supreme Court held that laws which affect the remedy only are not within the scope of the inhibition of this article and section of the Constitution, and further held that certain notes sued on by appellant were barred by a law of limitation passed subsequent to the execution of the notes.
“Where there is no direct constitutional prohibition, the legislative branch, whether federal or state, may pass retrospective laws, such as, in their operation, may effect suits pending, and give to a party a remedy which he did not previously possess, or modify an existing remedy, or remove an impediment in the way of legal proceedings. Such acts are of a remedial character and are the peculiar subjects of legislation.” 6 R. C. L. p. 322, | 311.
See ,8 Cyc. p. 1021, §§ (c) and (d). So the .Legislature may change the law as to venue applicable to a cause of action accrued before the passage of the act. Baines v. Jemi-son, 86 Tex. 118, 23 S. "W". 639. The Legislature may provide a means of establishing the validity of a claim without violating the constitutional inhibition. Caldwell Co. v. Harbert, 68 Tex. 321, 4 S. W. 607.
A law changing rules of evidence is not void as retrospective, though enacted after suit is brought. Etter v. Railway Co., 2 Willson, Civ. Cas. Ct. App. §§ 58, 62. An act requiring interest to be paid on taxes as a condition of redemption from the state is held legal in League v. State, 93 Tex. 553, 57 S. W. 34; Landa v. Obert, 5 Tex. Civ. App. 620, 25 S. W. 342.
Hence, we conclude that this objection of appellee to the judgment rendered on original hearing should be overruled.
We have examined Earle v. City of Henrietta, 91 Tex. 301, 43 S. W. 15, Eustis v. City of Henrietta, 90 Tex. 468, 39 S. W. 567, McCormick v. Edwards, 69 Tex. 106, 6 S. W. 32, and Meredith v. Coker, 65 Tex. 29, cited' by appellee, and do not believe that either of these cases supports the contention made by appellee that the act under discussion is in violation of article 1, § 16. But is the act in violation of other constitutional provisions, especially article 1, §§ 13 and 19, or of section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment? Article 1, § 13, provides in part:
“All courts shall be open; and every person for an injury done him, in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by. due course of law.”
Section 19 provides:
“No citizen of this state shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of the law of the land.”
In Eustis v. City of Henrietta, supra, on certified question from this court, the Supreme Court had under consideration the constitutionality of- an act providing:
“But no person shall be permitted to question the title acquired by the said deed without first showing that he, or the person under whom he claims title, had title to the land at the time of the sale, or that the title was obtained after the sale, and that all taxes due upon the lands have been paid by such person or the person un der whom he claims title as aforesaid.”
This act is apparently contained in part in article 958, of the Civil Statutes. Th'e Supreme Court held that the law was unconstitutional in so far as it required the payment of taxes as a precedent to making a defense against a void claim under a tax *657sale, and was in violation of the three sections of the Constitution mentioned . above. The court further held that the description of the property in its rendition and assessment for taxation was sufficient when it furnished the means by which the property could be identified from the description itself, or by the use of extrinsic evidence to apply that description to the property. This holding has been followed by numerous decisions. We are of the opinion that the holding that the act there under discussion was unconstitutional, in so far as it excluded a defense that the claim of the taxing authority was void, does not apply in the instant case. It is contended in this motion that the city failed to show that a legal levy of the taxes sought to be collected had been made by it— that such levy must be shown by the introduction of an ordinance of the city authorizing such levy. Earle v. City of Henrietta, supra; Greer v. Howell, 64 Tex. 688; Meredith v. Cooper, 65 Tex. 29; Dawson v. Ward, 71 Tex. 72, 9 S. W. 106; Clayton v. Rehm, 67 Tex. 52, 2 S. W. 45.
Article 7685, Vernon’s Sayles’ Ann. Civ. St. 1914, provides, in part, that:
“The list for each county, when certified to by the county judge, and assessment rolls and books bn file in the tax collector’s office, shall be prima facie evidence that all the requirements of the law have b.een complied with by the officers charged, with any duty thereunder, as to the regularity of listing, assessing, levying of all the taxes therein mentioned, and reporting as delinquent or sold to the state any real estate whatsoever, and that the amount alleged against said real estate is a true and correct charge; and, in cases in which the description of the property in said list or assessment rolls or books is not sufficient to properly identify the same, and of which property there is a sufficient description in the inventories in the assessor’s office, then said inventories shall be admissible as evidence of the description of said property.”
Upon the mayor of a city devolves the duty of certifying to the correctness of the list, and the mayor of Rising, Star did certify that the list of delinquent taxes, including the taxes of defendant below, was “a full true and correct list of the lots, blocks and tracts of land delinquent for taxes due the city of Rising Star * * * for the years, A. D. 1919, 1920, and 1921.”
In Rouse v. State, 54 S. W. 32, the San Antonio Court of Civil Appeals, speaking through Judge Ely, held that the delinquent list alone was not prima facie evidence that the law had been complied with, but inferentially held that, if article 7685 had been complied with, and there had been a proffer, not only of the certified, list, but also of the assessment rolls and books on file in the tax collector’s ’office, such proof would be sufficient. See Watkins v. State (Tex. Civ. App.) 61 S. W. 533, and Garza et al. v. City of San Antonio, 231 S. W. 697. In the last cited case, the Commission of Appeals said:
“It has been -held in this state that when the delinquent tax rolls required by statute (Rev. St. 1911, art. 7685 et seq.) to be made out are offered in evidence, they are prima facie evidence of nonpayment.”
In the instant case, we think at least a sufficiency of the “assessment rolls and books on file in the tax collector’s office” was shown. That portion of the tax rolls showing the name of J. M. Dill was introduced, showing his property, both real and personal, its assessed value, the rate of taxation, the amount of tax, etc.; the affidavit of the tax assessor and collector to the correctness of the “Rendered City Tax Roll”; the report of the board of equalization, that they had equalized the values of all the property on the tax rolls, both on the rendered and the unrendered rolls; the inventory of. the property by defendant below, with the valuation given thereon by him, under oath; an excerpt from the delinquent tax rolls, showing the property of defendant, and its valuation and the taxes due, including penalties, etc. We are of the opinion that this constituted a sufficient prima facie showing of the correctness of the list.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.