Court Opinion

ID: 9858050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:13:01.819398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:30.159141
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing
Appellants and appellees have filed motions for a rehearing. Appellees urge that we erred in viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to appellants. Certainly, in determining whether any fact issues were raised, where the Court withdrew the case from consideration of the jury and rendered judgment for appellees, the evidence must be so viewed. Appellants contend that we erred in remanding the cause and that we should have rendered judgment dissolving the injunction. We have carefully considered this question on original hearing. It was the writer’s first impression that such judgment should be rendered. However, after consultation and mature reflection, we decided to remand the cause, thinking that probably it had not been fully developed and that a remand was required in the interest of justice. We still adhere to this view. Appellants rely strongly on City of Dallas v. Lively, Tex.Civ.App., 161 S.W.2d 895, 898, wr.ref. *879There the cause was submitted to the jury, which among other findings found that (3) it was not necessary to the peace, health, safety or general welfare of the public to prohibit the use of appellee’s property for purposes of a gasoline filling station (a use prohibited by the ordinance in question there). In the course of the opinion Associate Justice Young said:
“ ‘The presumption is in favor of the validity of the ordinance. It will be presumed, in the absence of a clear showing to the contrary, that the governing body had sufficient reason, in view of local conditions, to make the classification which they have made; and if there could have existed a state of facts justifying the classification or restriction complained of, the courts will assume that it existed. The burden of establishing its discriminatory character is upon a person attacking it on that ground; and any reasonable doubts as to the validity of the classification will be resolved in favor of its validity.’ 30 T.J., p. 132, Sec. 61.
“[5] Without exception, these familiar principles have been applied to zoning ordinances emanating from an authorized police power. Otherwise expressed, a clear abuse of municipal discretion must appear as a predicate for judicial interference. (Citing numerous authorities). To sustain charges that the municipal judgment is arbitrary and unreasonable in its effect upon his property (it is stated in King v. Guerra, supra [Tex.Civ.App., 1 S.W.2d 373, 376]), ' * * * the extraordinary burden rests upon appellee to show that no conclusive, or even controversial or issuable, facts or conditions existed which would authorize the governing board of the municipality to exercise the discretion confided to it by a valid ordinance in determining a matter of purely governmental policy. * * * So, if it can be said that the evidence in this case raised the issue of the truth of any of the material facts upon which the board refused a permit, then a sufficient answer is that the board were the triers of those facts, and their finding was conclusive and may not be substituted by the finding of a jury’. (Italics ours)
“ * * * where, as here, the matters in controversy have been submitted to a jury, appellees thereby concede the existence of issuable facts. And, ‘If reasonable minds differ as to whether or not a particular restriction has a substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare, the restriction must stand as a valid exercise of the police power.’ City of Corpus Christi v. Jones, supra [Tex.Civ.App., 144 S.W.2d 388, 399].”
The judgment of the trial court enjoining enforcement of the regulations of the ordinance was reversed and judgment rendered dissolving the injunction. The logic of this opinion seems to us unanswerable. However, in Weaver v. Ham, Tex.Sup., 232 S.W.2d 704, the Supreme Court on the basis qf fact findings by the trial court, sustained the conclusion of that court that the ordinance there involved was invalid. If the Supreme Court in Weaver v. Ham held that the evidence raised debatable issues, the determination of which would decide that the ordinance was valid or invalid, then we cannot reconcile such holding with the Lively case. Here the trial court has held, not that the evidence raised issues of fact the determination of which would bear on the invalidity of the ordinance, but that the evidence showed its invalidity as a matter of law. In this view we do not concur for the reasons stated in our original opinion. We do not hold that the evidence raised issues the determination of which would have warranted the conclusion that the ordinance was invalid. That question is not before us. Our holding is limited to the proposition that the evidence did not show the ordinance invalid as a matter of law. On another trial the evidence may show its invalidity as a matter of law, or raise issues a determination of which will be a basis for such holding.
The motions are overruled.