American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin

246 S.W. 1019, 112 Tex. 239, 1922 Tex. LEXIS 121
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 20, 1922
DocketNo. 3394.
StatusPublished
Cited by110 cases

This text of 246 S.W. 1019 (American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Indemnity Co. v. City of Austin, 246 S.W. 1019, 112 Tex. 239, 1922 Tex. LEXIS 121 (Tex. 1922).

Opinion

Mr. Chief Justice CURETON

delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error, the American Indemnity Company, a private corporation, was chartered on April 19, 1913, under Chapter 117 of the General Laws of the Thirty-second Legislature of this State. It was incorporated for the transaction of an insurance business, its objects and" purposes being substantially all those named in Section 1 of said Chapter, which is Article 4942a Vernon’s Complete Texas Statutes. These purposes are set out in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, 211 S. W., 812,; 814, and it is unnecessary to restate them. It is sufficient to say that the purposes authorized by the statute embrace, among others, the usual objects of casualty insurance. The home office of the company is, and has always been, in Galveston, Galveston County, Texas. The City of Austin, in Travis County, is a municipal corporation, chartered by special Act of the Legislature. The City filed this suit against the plaintiff in error in the District Court of Travis County on April 14, 1917, for the purpose of recovering taxes alleged to be due for the years 1914, 1915, and 1916, on certain bonds1 and securities deposited by plaintiff in error with the Treasurer of the State at Austin under the laws of the State. The case was tried before the court without a jury on an agreed statement of facts. The trial court rendered judgment on the 22d of December, 1917, in favor of the defendant in error for sums aggregating $9,842.33, principal, interest, and costs of the taxes found by him to be due for the years mentioned. The judgment also provided for a foreclosure of the tax lien upon the securities found by the court to have been on deposit with the State Treasurer on the first day of January of each of the years mentioned. The ease was appealed in due form by the plaintiff in error to the Court of Civil Appeals, which affirmed the judgment on April 16, 1919. A writ of error was granted, and the cause is now before this Court for review.

The record shows that on January 1, 1914, the plaintiff in error had on deposit with the Treasurer securities aggregating in value $100,000.00, and on the first day of January of each of the years 1915 and 1916 sums in excess of $200,000.00. These several deposits *243 were in securities, interest bearing notes, and bonds, in which the company’s assets had been invested, and were made under Articles 4930 and 4942e, Vernon’s Sayles’ Revised Statutes, for the benefit of the holders of the company's obligations and policies, for which purposes the Treasurer was required to receive them. The company, however, had the right to substitute other paper of equal character and value at any time, and to collect interest, dividends, and profits on all securities on deposit. Vernon’s Complete Texas Statutes, Articles 4928, 4930, 4942e.

The contention of the City of Austin is that the taxable situs of these deposited securities is in Travis County; while the Indemnity Company asserts that they were taxable alone at its home office in Galveston County. There were other issues in the case, but this is the only one, under our view of the law, necessary to be considered.

Chapter 117, Acts of the Thirty-second Legislature, under which plaintiff in error was incorporated, was cumulative as to insurance legislation in the State, and as to the mode and manner of organizing and doing insurance business, and did not repeal any law then in force. Vernon’s Complete Texas Statutes, Article 4942z.

The position of plaintiff in error is that the situs of these securities for purposes of taxation, as well as the manner of taxation, not being in express language provided for in the statutes under which the deposits were made, is fixed and determined by Revised Statutes, Articles 4749 and 4764. The last named Article is general in its terms, and provides a special method of taxation for insurance companies.

Article 4749, after authorizing for the deposit of securities in some-, what the same manner as do the statutes under which deposits were made in this case, provides:

"For the purpose of state, county and municipal taxation, the situs of all personal property belonging to such companies shall be at the home office of such company.”

The plaintiff in error contends that it is subject alone to these two Articles as to the manner of rendering its taxes and as to the situs for taxation of the securities here involved. For each of the years named, it did in fact render and pay its taxes in Galveston County, in accordance with these Articles of the statute.

The first insistence of the defendant in error to be noted is that Article 4749, referred to above, fixing the situs for taxation of securities deposited with the State Treasurer at Austin, is unconstitutional, because in violation of Section 11, Article 8, of the Constitution of this State, which declares:

"All property, whether owned by persons or corporations, shall be assessed for taxation and the taxes paid in the county where situated.”

*244 We have already determined this question adversely to this contention. This Article of the statute is constitutional. Great Southern Life Insurance Co. v. City of Austin, 112 Texas, 1, 243 S. W., 778, 785.

Articles 4749 and 4764 were originally parts of Chapter 108, General Laws of the Thirty-first Legislature, which Act on its face, and Article 4749 in particular, by express language relates to life, health, and accident insurance companies. Plaintiff in error asserts that it is to be governed by Articles 4749 and 4764, by virtue of Revised Statutes Article 4955, which reads:

“All the provisions of the laws of this state applicable to the life, fire, marine, inland, lightning, or tornado.insurance companies, shall, so far as the same are applicable, govern and apply to all companies transacting any other kind of insurance business in this state, so far as they are not in conflict with provisions of law made specially applicable thereto.”

This Article is broad enough in its terms to make plaintiff in error subject to and to give it the benefits of Articles 4749 and 4764, and make them the law which governs it in the rendition of its property for taxation and fixing the taxable situs of that property-at Galveston, where its home office is located.

Defendant in error contends' however, that Article 4955 is unconstitutional and void, because its substance was not embraced in the caption of Chapter 108, Acts of the Thirty-first Legislature. The language of Article 4955 is the same as that of Section 55 of Chapter 108 of the Acts of the legislature named, and Articles 4749 and 4764 were respectively Section 38 and 25 of that Act. The caption of this Chapter is fully set out in the National Surety Company Case, cited below, and need not be repeated here.

We agree with the contention that the substance of S'ection 55, or of what is now Article 4955, was not embraced in the caption of this Act, and that, therefore, as originally passed said Section was unconstitutional and void, because in violation of Section 35, Article 3, of _ the State Constitution. Several of the Courts of Civil Appeals have made a similar holding for the same reason. National Surety Co. v. Murphy-Walker, 174 S. W., 997; Ocean Accident & Guaranty Corp. v. Northern Texas Traction Co., 224 S. W., 212; Western Indemnity Co. v.

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Bluebook (online)
246 S.W. 1019, 112 Tex. 239, 1922 Tex. LEXIS 121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-indemnity-co-v-city-of-austin-tex-1922.