Court Opinion

ID: 9770573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:10:30.314738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:18.587969
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
Appellant predicates his motion for rehearing upon the following assertions of error:
1. That “the ordinance is void because it does not state the conditions that must exist before the City Health Officer is empowered to act.”
The ordinance in question sets forth certain specific limitations and requirements that must exist before the city health officer is empowered to grant a permit, among them being the number of named animals and fowls that may legally be kept and the distance from the residence of another where the same may be so kept. The relator admits that he has not met these requirements which are specifically enumerated in the ordinance itself.
Our review of this question must, therefore, be limited to the city’s constitutional power to enact an ordinance prohibiting the keeping of more than 12 chickens within 100 feet of the residence of another.
In Ex parte Broussard, 74 Tex. Cr. R. 333, 169 S. W. 660 (1914), we had an occasion to write exhaustively on the question of the constitutionality of an ordinance giving the city council the power to grant or withhold a permit for the keeping of more than 6 head of cattle within 300 feet of a private residence.
As we view the facts of the case at bar, the Broussard case is here controlling, and we see no reason to depart from the holding therein.
(2) That the ordinance is void as applied to relator because it deprives him of property and liberty without the process of law.
The Supreme Court of the United States as early as 1904, in Fischer v. St. Louis, 48 Law Ed. 1018, in writing upon the validity of a city ordinance prohibiting the keeping of cattle within prescribed limits, made the following statement of law:
*362“The power of the legislature to authorize its municipalities to regulate and suppress all such places or occupations as, in its judgment, are likely to be injurious to the health of its inhabitants, or to disturb people living in the immediate neighborhood by loud noises or offensive odors, is so clearly within the police power as to be no longer open to question.”
We are impressed with the soundness of the reasoning of the Supreme Court of New Mexico in Mitchell v. City of Roswell, 111 P. (2d) 41 (1941). There, the court had under consideration the validity of an ordinance making it unlawful to keep certain livestock within a restricted area of the city. We quote therefrom, in part, as follows:
“All property and property rights are held subject to the fair exercise of the police power (3 McQuillin, 2d Ed., par. 939) ; and a reasonable regulation enacted for the benefit of the public health, convenience, safety or general welfare is not an unconstitutional taking of property in violation of the contract clause, the due process clause, or the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution. Article 1, par. 10; Amend. 14. Atlantic Coast Line Ry Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U. S. 548, 34 S. Ct. 364, 58 L. Ed. 721. A vested interest in property cannot be asserted against it upon the theory that the business was established before the statute or ordinance was passed. When the power is authorized and reasonably enforced, it matters not that the investment in property, as it is alleged here, was made prior to the passing of the ordinance, or that the value of the property was reduced materially by reason thereof; or that the property is not so useful or valuable for any other purpose. The private interests of the individual are subordinated to the superior interest of the public. Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171, 35 S. Ct. 511, 59 L. Ed. 900; City of Little Rock v. Reinman-Wolfort Automobile Livery Co., 107 Ark. 174, 155 S. W. 105; Ex parte Hadacheck, 165 Cal. 416, 132 P. 584, L.R.A. 1916B, 1248; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394, 36 S. Ct. 143, 60 L. Ed. 348, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 927; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 31, 5 S. Ct. 357, 28 L. Ed. 923, 924; * * *.”
“It is the policy of the courts to uphold regulations intended to protect the public health, unless it is plain that they have no real relation to the object for which ostensibly they were enacted, and prima facie they are reasonable. Miller v. Syracuse, 168 Ind. 230, 80 N.E. 411, 8 L.R.A., N.S. 471, 120 Am. St. Rep. 366; Odd Fellows’ Cemetery Ass’n v. San Francisco, 140 Cal. *363226, 233, 73 P. 987, 989; Boyd v. City of Sierra Madre, 41 Cal. App. 520, 183 P. 230.”
The relator must overcome the finding of the city council, stated in the preamble to the ordinance, that it wa§ “necessary to the interest of public health and welfare to prohibit the keeping of certain animals and to regulate the keeping of certain other animals and poultry within the City limits of the City of Corpus Christi, Texas.” These findings and the enactment of the ordinance made a prima facie showing that the ordinance was reasonable and placed the burden upon relator to disapprove it. Hislop v. City of Joplin, 157 S. W. 625; Ex parte Glass, 49 Tex. Cr. R. 87, 90 S. W. 1108.
It must be remembered that the question for our determination here is the constitutional power of a city council in public health matters.
An examination of the record herein not only reflects that the relator was unable to meet this burden, but also shows that the trial court had before it sufficient evidence to authorize a finding that the business, as operated by the relator, reasonably endangered and threatened the health of the public.
Remaining convinced that we properly disposed of this cause originally, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.