Court Opinion

ID: 9830000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:48:17.122991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:10.732212
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
A careful examination of appellant’s petition shows that this suit is not a contest of an election. Appellant does not seek to set aside or annul any order of the commissioners’ court made and entered in connection with any of the elections enumerated in this petition. It is simply a suit for injunction to' restrain the duly elected and qualified officers of Sabine county from performing the duties required of them by the statutes of this state to make effective the purposes of the elections. It also appears from plaintiff’s petition that respondents fully complied with all the statutory requirements in ordering, holding, and declaring the result of the elections. The matters about which appellant complains are dehors the record. By alleging extraneous facts and circumstances, appellant seeks to avoid the effect of the orders entered by the commissioners’ court on its minutes and the elections expressing the will of the people, while leaving those orders on the minutes of the commissioners’ court unimpaired.
[2] Though the commissioners’ court is one of special and limited jurisdiction, it “is a court of record and speaks through its minutes.” Gano v. Palo Pinto County, 71 Tex. 102, 8 S. W. 634. And when it acts within its statutory and constitutional limitations — ' as appellant’s petition shows that it has done in this case — its proceedings cannot be attacked collaterally. If the proceedings are void for any of the reasons advanced by appellant, the bonds issued under and by authority of such proceedings would be void, and could be attacked at any time. Equity has no jurisdiction to restrain the issuance of void bonds. Polly v. Hopkins, 74 Tex. 145, 11 S. W. 1084. On the other hand, if the proceedings are merely voidable, appellant has a full and complete remedy under the statutes providing methods for contesting elections, and, in such a contest, equity' can interpose its jurisdiction to preserve and protect the interest of the litigants pending a determination of the legal issues involved.
The above discussion is apart from the conclusion expressed by us in our original opinion. We there said: .
“AH the matters complained of by appellant were political in their nature and beyond the control of the courts.”
In making this statement, we had in mind the following proposition advanced by Mr. Justice Gill in Robinson & Watson v. Wingate, 36 Tex. Civ. App. 69, 80 S. W. 1069:
“It is the concensus of opinion that elections are under the control of the political branch of our government; that the Legislature has seen fit to intrust to certain special tribunals their holding, the canvassing of -the returns, and the declarations of the result; that, having done these things, the courts have under their general powers no authority to review the action of the special tribunals thus constituted.”
In denying a writ of error in this case (98 Tex. 268, 83 S. W. 182), the Supreme Court directly approved the propositions and reasoning advanced by Judge Gill.
On a former day of this term we denied appellant’s motion for rehearing in this case, without a written opinion. This additional opinion is filed in answer to its motion asking for a written opinion.
Believing that the case has been correctly disposed of, the motion for rehearing is in all things overruled.