Court Opinion

ID: 9827867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:54:04.365254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:20.784660
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In its motion for rehearing, appellant earnestly insists that the original opinion in this ease is in error in holding that the record before us raised the issue of legal fraud in respect to the'determination by its governing body of the fact that appellant had the requisite population of more than 2,000 when the rate making ordinance in. question was enacted, because appellee’s pleading did not raise such issue. It is true that there was no specific pleading by appellee presenting such issue, and the original opinion so holds. A re-examination of the pleadings of both appellant and appellee, however, convinces us that the facts necessary to raise such an issue are alleged. The first paragraph of appellant’s petition contains the following allegation: “That the plaintiff at the time of the purchase of the municipal p[ant, as hereinafter set out, and the adoption of the rate ordinance, hereinafter mentioned, the city had a population of over 2,000 as determined by the next preceding Federal census.” This is the only allegation in the petition in respect to appellant’s population at the time the rate making ordinance was enacted. This allegation is capable of no construction other than that of an admission by appellant that its governing body determined the existence of the necessary population of the city alone from the fact that the 1920 census report showed the existence of the required population to give it the statutory right to exercise the rate-making power. Appellant’s attorney, in the motion for rehearing, adopts such construction in-his argument in respect to the issue of legal fraud. This argument in part is: “His petition (the petition drawn by the attorney) disclosed that he plead the evidence upon which the population was determined, viz., the 1920 Federal census returns, being the last official published census rendered within the purview of Holcomb v. Spikes (Tex. Civ. App.) 232 S. W. 891.”
In its answer and motion to dissolve, appel-lee’s pleading contained this allegation: “Defendants, further answering herein, say that, as a matter of fact, the City of Farmersville did not possess or have, when this suit was instituted, nor at the time said City of Farmers-ville sought by ordinance to regulate the rates and compensation of the light company, a population of as many as 2,000 people.”
This pleading of appellee is in direct response to appellant’s pleading, above quoted, and is in effect a denial of the right of appellant to make .the 1920 census a basis for the *277right to exercise the rate-making power, authorized by statute, to be exercised by cities possessing a population of more than 2,000 at the time a city avails itself of the power of rate making for public utilities. No presumption can be indulged that appellant’s population contained the same, or a greater, number of inhabitants in 1930 than it was shown to contain in 1920. If appellant’s governing body exercised the rate-making power unlawfully, because of the want of the necessary population, and appellee was thereby injuriously affected in its property rights, such unauthorized and unlawful act of appellant’s governing body would constitute legal fraud against appellee, notwithstanding the fact that such governing body honestly, but mistakenly, believed that the matter of the necessary poulation was determined by reference to the 1920 census report. There is nothing in this record to suggest that in passing the ordinance in question appellant’s governing body acted otherwise than in good faith. If there were evidence suggesting to the contrary, then an issue of actual fraud, rather than legal or constructive fraud, would be raised. We are of the opinion that when the pleadings of both parties, on the matter of appellant’s population, are construed together (and it is elementary that pleadings may be so construed), there is sufficient basis in pleading for consideration of the issue of legal-or constructive fraud in the matter of enacting the said ordinance.
We have examined the cases, cited by appellant as being in conflict with this opinion, and conclude that no conflict exists. Most of the cases cited give recognition to the principle announced in this case, to the effect that a trial court does not abuse its discretion in dissolving a temporary writ. of injunction, granted ex parte, in a case in which there is shown to exist a serious controversy as to plaintiff’s right to the relief sought in the suit, and where the refusal to allow the injunction does not destroy the status quo of the subject-matter of the litigation, as same existed at the time plaintiff instituted proceedings to enforce his alleged rights. The motion is overruled.
Overruled. ■