Court Opinion

ID: 9828863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:48:25.404677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:53.887689
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
A closer analysis of the case, induced by appellee’s able and earnest motion for rehearing, impels further discussion and conclusions upon the case made.
The powers granted in the Enabling Act to municipalities of the class embracing the city of Victoria include the express power to “abate and prohibit within the city limits, slaughteiing establishments.” Rev. St. 1925, art. 1015, § 9. This grant was carried forward, by identical language, into the charter of said city. By this process the Degislature delegated to the municipality the express power to prohibit and abate the operation of slaughtering establishments within the corporate limits of the city, which grant carried with it the necessarily implied power to enforce the express power by appropriate penalties.
The power being expressly granted by the Degislature, the time for assuming and the manner of exercising it rest within the sound discretion of the governing board of the municipality. Under' such authority, the board, may determine the questions of the necessity of exercising the power, and of the method of giving effect thereto, and its determination of those questions is final and conclusive, and may not be revised by the courts, in the absence of clear and conclusive evidence that the board had acted arbitrarily and without reason. And in such situation the burden rests upon those aggrieved to. make such showing. These rules are too well settled to require the citation of authorities -other than those cited in the original opinion in this case.
With this grant of power at hand, it devolved upon the city council of Victoria to determine when conditions in the municipality called for the exercise of the power. It was for the council to determine if the population had become so distributed over the territorial area of the city, and conditions within the city limits had become such, that the operation of slaughter houses therein would menace the health and comfort of the public. The power to resolve such questions had been expressly delegated to the city, and the voters of the city had selected the members of .the council as being specially fitted to' determine when and in what manner that power should be exercised. The governmental functions necessary to carry out the grant are administrative ; they rest peculiarly within the province of city councils; and the courts have no power to usurp those functions and set themselves up as -better qualified than city councils to pass upon such questions.
In this case the city council, acting under express legislative grant, resolved the question of necessity in favor of assuming the power thus granted, whereupon it became the duty of the council to prohibit and abate by appropriate ordinances, as it did, the operation of slaughtering establishments within the city limits, and to prescribe appropriate penalties for violations of the ordinances. The presumption of law is that the council acted *550timely and reasonably, and its action cannot be questioned by tbe courts, unless it appears conclusively that it acted arbitrarily and without tbe semblance of reason.
In this view of tbe case it is perhaps true that the declaration in the ordinance ill question that slaughtering establishments within the city limits were nuisances was surplus-age, for clearly under the express grant tbe council had tbe authority to prohibit and abate such concerns without resort to the use of that technical designation. That declaration certainly could not lessen the force of the prohibition, even if it might jeopardize the effectiveness of the penalty prescribed, which is not a question for decision here. Be that as it may, however, we conclude that the council had the express power to prohibit and abate slaughter houses in the city limits, and, when they had expressly exercised that power, they were authorized to declare such operation to be a nuisance under the express legislative and charter powers to define and prohibit “all nuisances,” to “prevent and summarily abate and remove all nuisances” (article 1175), and to “abate and remove nuisances and punish the authors thereof by fine, and to define and declare what shall he nuisances and authorize and direct the summary abatement thereof; and to abate all nuisances which may, injure or affect the public health or comfort in any manner they may deem expedient.” Article 1015.
It must be remembered that the council was not dealing with ordinary business establishments, such as grocery, hardware, furniture, or dry goods stores, but with slaughter houses, which have inherent qualities rendering them peculiarly subject to police regulations and prohibitions.
With these enlargements we adhere to the holdings in the original disposition that the ordinance is valid upon its face, and may be stricken down through the courts only by a clear and conclusive showing that the city council has exceeded its discretion under expressly granted powers, and has acted arbitrarily and without reason.
We have gone this much further into the ease in deference to appellee’s very forceful motion for rehearing, which must be overruled.