Court Opinion

ID: 9674872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:36:45.072941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.011915
License: Public Domain

WHITHAM, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result. I write to express my view that TEX.REV.CIV.STAT.ANN. art. 5472e (Vernon Supp. 1982-1983), is unconstitutionally vague on its face because of the following provision in Section 1 of the Act:
[Pjrovided however, that monies paid to a contractor or subcontractor or borrowed by a contractor or subcontractor, or owner may be used to pay reasonable overhead of said contractor, subcontractor, or owner, directly related to such construction contract. [Emphasis added.]
Accordingly, I would sustain appellant’s first ground of error and acquit.
Under Article 5472e the trust funds “may be used to pay reasonable overhead ... directly related” to the contract. Article 5472e does not define “reasonable overhead” or “reasonable overhead directly related to such construction contract.” Appellant argues that the statute is unconstitutionally vague in that it fails to delineate the extent to which payment can be made of ongoing business costs apart from particular overhead incurred on a given job. I agree.
A penal statute must be drafted with sufficient clarity to enable the individual to understand exactly what conduct is proscribed if it is to withstand constitutional scrutiny. Connally v. General Construction Company, 269 U.S. 385, 393, 46 S.Ct. 126, 128, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926). A statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. Connally at 391, 46 S.Ct. at 127. The underlying principle is that no man shall be held criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed. Palmer v. City of Euclid, Ohio, 402 U.S. 544, 546, 91 S.Ct. 1563, 1564, 29 L.Ed.2d 98 (1971). Living under a rule of law entails various suppositions, one of which is that all persons are entitled to be informed as to what the State commands or forbids. Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162, 92 S.Ct. 839, 843, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972). As put by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Ex Parte Halsted, 147 Tex. Cr.R. 453, 182 S.W.2d 479, 482 (1944):
Under our system of government, the legislature has the power to pass any and all laws which to it may seem proper, so long as same violate no provisions of our State or Federal Constitutions. A law must be sufficiently definite that its terms and provisions may be known, understood, and applied. An Act of the legislature which violates either of said Constitutions, or an Act that is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain as to be incapable of being understood, is void and un-enforcible [sic]. A void law affords no basis for a criminal prosecution.
And later in Ex Parte Granviel, 561 S.W.2d 503, 511 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) (en banc), quoting from Halsted:
... a “law must be sufficiently definite that its terms and provisions may be known, understood, and applied. An Act of the legislature which violates either of said Constitutions [Federal or Texas], or an Act that is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain as to be incapable of being understood, is void and unenforcible” [sic].
Where the word “reasonable” is at issue as a measure of a person’s actions I am persuaded by the reasoning in Parks v. Libby-Owens-Ford Glass Co., 360 Ill. 130, 195 N.E. 616, 622 (1935), in which the statute before the court was held unconstitutionally void for vagueness:
The expression “provide reasonable and approved devices, means or methods for the prevention of such industrial or occupational diseases as are incident to such work or process” appears in the last part of section 1.... Each employer of *869labor must place his own construction upon these general words without any guidance. Section 1 does not purport to fix a standard of conduct whereby an employer may with any degree of certainty know the duty that rests upon him under it. A device deemed reasonable by one employer might well be considered unreasonable by another. ... The result is that each employer is required to determine, at his peril, what is a reasonable and approved device. If a court or a jury subsequently determines that the device used was not reasonable and approved he is subject to unlimited liability for his mistake of judgment. An honest attempt to comply with the law will not of itself afford him a defense.
In my view the trustee in the present case must guess as to what the statute means when it refers to “reasonable overhead ... directly related” to the contract. Therefore, the statute is not drafted with sufficient clarity to enable an individual to understand exactly what conduct is proscribed and is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain as to be incapable of being understood. That the statute lacks the required clarity to impose criminal sanctions is understandable. The statute is contained in the civil statutes, not the criminal code. The statute obviously found its way into the civil statutes in order to impress upon certain persons the necessity of paying their debts—or else. Nevertheless, I cannot agree that when invoking the “or else” the State of Texas may place those persons in the position of guessing the amount of “reasonable overhead ... directly related” to a construction contract which will meet with judge or jury approval and going to the penitentiary if they guess wrong. In my opinion that is precisely what the minority permits the State of Texas to do.
It follows that I would hold Article 5472e unconstitutionally vague on its face and thus void and unenforceable. Therefore, there exists no valid law denouncing as a crime the acts charged against appellant. Accordingly, I concur that the trial court’s judgment must be reversed and the case remanded with instructions to enter a judgment of acquittal.
VANCE, J., joins in this opinion.