Broocks v. State

41 S.W.2d 714, 1931 Tex. App. LEXIS 1390
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 4, 1931
DocketNo. 2075.
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 41 S.W.2d 714 (Broocks v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Broocks v. State, 41 S.W.2d 714, 1931 Tex. App. LEXIS 1390 (Tex. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

WALKER, J.

This suit was instituted by the state of Texas and San Augustine county against John H. Broocks, Ben C. Broocks, Era Cox, Carl O. Cox, Eugenia Osborne, and The First National Bank of Hemphill, to recover taxes, interest, penalties, and costs in the sum of $6,729.73, and to foreclose the tax lien against thirteen separate tracts of land for the years, as shown by exhibits attached to the petition, from 1910 to 1926, inclusive. The petition claimed taxes against each separate tract of land for the gross amount due thereon. Judgment was entered for the gross sum of $5,-833.42, but by special findings made a part of the judgment, the court determined the amount of taxes due against each separate tract of land. A personal judgment was entered against the defendants jointly and severally for the full amount of the taxes due with a decree that the land be sold in payment thereof, and if the land should not sell for enough to satisfy the judgment that the balance be made out of other property of the defendants, as in case of ordinary execution; “provided further, that if the said defendants, or either of them, or their attorneys, shall at any time before such sale file with the sheriff or other officer in whose hands this order of sale is placed, a written request that the property therein described be divided and sold in less tracts than the whole, together with the description of such division or subdivisions, as near as may be, to satisfy said taxes,” etc. Without naming in the petition any school or road district, and without purporting to sue for any school or road district, plaintiffs alleged that certain taxes were due as “school and road bond tax.” The judgment rendered included some indefinite amount as taxes due school and road districts. The answer of the defendants was by general and special demurrers and general denial.

The defendants have perfected .their appeal to this court and filed briefs in support of their assignments and propositions. The plaintiffs have filed no briefs, but on the morning of submission filed their motion to dismiss, which we summarily overrule as being without merit. This appeal presents the following propositions:

The court did not err in refusing to strike the exhibits from the petition. These exhibits were sufficient, at least, to show an itemized statement of the taxes for each year they were claimed to be delinquent. However, upon another trial, the pleadings refer-' ring to these exhibits should be more specific and the exhibits should be directly referred to and adopted as part of the petition, and as explaining its general allegations.

The petition was not subject to general demurrer on the ground that San Augustine county was made plaintiff jointly with the state of Texas. The proposition is that since under article 7326, R. S. 1925, tax suits for state and county taxes must be brought in the name of the state, naming San Augustine county as a party plaintiff with the state made the petition subject to general demurrer.

This suit was instituted by the state of Texas and county of San Augustine “through its duly elected and acting county attorney.” There is no merit in the proposition that the failure to allege that the county attorney was duly qualified rendered the petition subject to general demurrer.

However, the petition was subject to the general demurrer wherein appellees sought to recover taxes for school and road districts without naming such school and road districts in the petition and without alleging that the suit was brought for the use and benefit of such school and road districts. Again there was no allegation that the land described in the petition,- and which appellees alleged was subject to the tax claimed, was situated in any school or road district. The omission of this allegation rendered the petition subject to general demurrer. Miller v. Crawford Independent School District, 26 Tex. Civ. App. 495, 63 S. W. 894. In the exhibits the numbers of the school and road districts were given but, without an allegation in the petition itself to the effect .that the suit was brought for the use of such districts, the exhibits alone were insufficient to state a cause of action.

The petition was not subject to the general demurrer on the ground that a personal judgment was prayed for against each of the defendants. This suit was brought under Article 7326, R. S. 1925, and under that article the State is entitled to a personal judgment against the owner of the land for the full amount of the delinquent taxes. In Harrison v. Orr, 296 S. W. 871, construing *717 this article, the Commission of Appeals intimated that the failure to render a personal judgment against the defendant would make the judgment interlocutory, and in Broocks v. State, 15 S.W.(2d) 665, speaking for this court, Mr. Chief Justice Hightower said that the failure to render a personal judgment against the defendants rendered the judgment fundamentally erroneous. The logic of these decisions is that a personal judgment should be rendered only against the defendant who owned the land at the time the tax accrued. In view of another trial it should be said that the record in this case does not show which of these defendants owned this land when the tax accrued. Appellants made this point only on oral argument. Upon another trial the personal judgment should be rendered only against such of the defendants as owed the taxes sued for. Of course, it is necessary to allege and prove that the taxes claimed are due against a specific tract of land, and it is also necessary that the tax lien be foreclosed against the land.

The petition was not subject to special exception because it failed to give the abstract numbers of the several tracts of land described in the petition. The land was definitely located without this additional description. The other special exceptions presented by the sixth proposition were properly overruled. Thus the petition stated in gross the amount claimed against each tract and referred to the exhibits for an itemized statement of such taxes as they accrued from year to year, together with the interest, penalty, and costs against each tract of land. Because the petition merely alleged the gross amount due against each tract of land for all the years sued for, without embodying in the petition an itemized statement of such taxes as they accrued year by year, it seems to be the contention of appellants that the petition in this respect was not aided by the exhibits. Appellants correctly contend that exhibits attached to pleadings will not relieve the pleader from making the proper allegations, of which the exhibits may be the evidence in whole or in part. Wynne v. Bank, 82 Tex. 378, 17 S. W. 918. But, where a general allegation is made, as was made herein by ap-pellees, the exhibits may be referred to in aid and explanation of such general allegations.

Appellants correctly contend, under article 2354, R. S. 1925, that a tax levy can be made by the commissioners’ court only at a regular term of the court and when all the members of the court are present. Free v. Scarborough, 70 Tex. 672, 8 S. W. 490. Recognizing the force of this article and not relying upon the statutory presumptions available to it under American Lmbr. Co. v. State (Tex. Civ. App.) 165 S. W. 467, the state offered in evidence for each of the years sued for, except 1910, an order from the minutes of the commissioners’ court as follows, except as to the specific year for which the several levies were made:

“August 12, 1929.

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41 S.W.2d 714, 1931 Tex. App. LEXIS 1390, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/broocks-v-state-texapp-1931.