Court Opinion

ID: 9659787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:54:42.282728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:11.538734
License: Public Domain

BROOKSHIRE, Justice,
concurring.
This writing is a full and cordial concurrence with the opinion of Chief Justice Walker.
Significant and important is Chapter 676, Tex.S.B. 785, 70th Leg. (1987). The said Chapter 676 is found at page 2527. This legislative enactment, and especially Section 2 thereof, entitled “VALIDATION”, effects, in my view, a complete ratification, *235adoption and approval of the annexations taken by the City of Port Arthur.
In my view, the learned and respected trial judge’s judgment should be affirmed, inter alia, because of the paramountcy of the enactments of the Legislature of the State of Texas coupled with Port Arthur’s annexations.
The Appellee’s annexations (validated most broadly by the Legislature) and the record demonstrate very strong evidence of high probative value. This evidence amply supports the trial bench’s findings of fact and conclusions of law. The record clearly reflects that the City of Port Arthur made numerous attempts to entreat the Appellant, the City of Bridge City, to rectify and correct the contested ordinances. Appellant significantly declined to do so. Hence, the resulting attorneys’ fees became and were necessary; Port Arthur was left with no realistic choice but to proceed to litigation.
Strictly as a matter for a future time and another future legislative session, it is not imprudent or impudent to observe that, from a philosophical — searching for the truth — position; the Legislature (enlightened by appropriate committee hearings) could empower the protagonist cities herein to share in the tax revenues. This must await a future date. As a purely hypothetical consideration, let us suppose that about 50% of the employees, working at the power station, live in and use the municipal services of Bridge City and about 50% of the employees, working at the same power station, live in and use the municipal services of Port Arthur. Why, then, would it not be fair, reasonable and equitable for the contesting municipalities to share in the tax monies?
But there has to be certainty and predictability in taxation matters of this type and we must adhere to the law presently in effect; the Court’s opinion is correct and has the quality of rightness.
Port Arthur, being the Plaintiff, filed its original petition on September 23, 1988. The trial commenced on January 17, 1989, and the final judgment was signed and entered on January 27, 1989, by a very experienced and highly respected jurist. The said Chapter 676 was fully effective on August 31, 1987. Hence, that chapter governed the proceedings and made inviolate Appellee’s annexations and their sequelae. I sanguinely and sagaciously concur.