Court Opinion

ID: 9645909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:40:01.615977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:32.913790
License: Public Domain

KILGARLIN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the court’s judgment. However, I share the view of Justice Ray that the 70th Legislature repealed the authorization of a peremptory challenge of retired or former judges. Additionally, I would urge the members of the legislature, should they consider readopting similar legislation, to delete the word “disqualified” from the language of Tex.Gov’t Code § 74.053(b). The choice of that word is unfortunate, for it has constitutional impli*483cations that were probably unintended. However, the statute does (or did, if it has been repealed) read “[i]f a party to a civil case files a timely objection to the assignment, the judge is disqualified to hear the case” (emphasis added). The legislature is without authority to expand the grounds for disqualification set out in article V, section 11 of the Texas Constitution. Disqualification in a civil case is permissible, and required, in only three situations: whenever the judge: (1) is interested in the outcome of the case; (2) is related to a party by affinity or consanguinity within a proscribed degree; or (3) has acted as counsel in the case.
That neither this court nor the legislature can create additional grounds for judicial disqualification was probably best expressed by former Chief Justice Robert W. Calvert in a comment on this court’s opinion in Manges v. Guerra, 673 S.W.2d 180 (Tex.1984). He stated:
The opinion seems to the writer to leave not the slightest doubt that the only grounds for disqualification of a judge are those listed in art. 5, section 11, of the Constitution, and that the grounds set out in Canon 3C(1) should not be considered in the future as grounds for disqualification.
Calvert, Disqualification of Judges, 47 Tex.B J. 1330,1337 (1984), cited in Kilgarlin & Bruch, Disqualification and Recusal of Judges, 17 St. Mary’s L.J. 599, 604 (1986). Case law certainly supports the view that the constitutional grounds of disqualification are exclusive. Love v. Wilcox, 119 Tex. 256, 263, 28 S.W.2d 515, 518 (1930). See also Gaines v. Gaines, 677 S.W.2d 727, 730 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1984, no writ) (emphasizing distinction between mandatory constitutional disqualification as opposed to “advisory” rules in Code of Judicial Conduct); River Road Neighborhood Ass’n v. South Texas Sports, Inc., 673 S.W.2d 952 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1984, no writ) (the grounds of disqualification enumerated in the Constitution are mandatory, inclusive and exclusive).
I further believe that the legislature is constitutionally prohibited from exercising any power properly attached to the judicial branch, except in those instances that the Constitution of the State of Texas specifically allows. Tex.Const. art. II, § 1.
I concur in the court’s judgment.