Hallum v. Coleman

214 S.W. 989, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1012
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 5, 1919
DocketNo. 8264.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 214 S.W. 989 (Hallum v. Coleman) 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
Hallum v. Coleman, 214 S.W. 989, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1012 (Tex. Ct. App. 1919).

Opinion

'TALBOT, J.

The appellees instituted this suit, praying for a writ of injunction enjoining appellants from turning out or permitting their hogs to run at large in two subdivisions of Henderson county, Tex., alleging, in substance, that they were farmers and owned large farms situated in said subdivisions; that appellants were turning their hogs out and permitting them to depredate upon their crops; that the stock law of this state, prohibiting hogs from running at large, had been adopted in said subdivisions by elections duly held in the years 1899 and 1890; that appellees were without adequate remedy at law, and unless the injunction prayed for was granted they would suffer inseparable injury. The court granted a temporary injunction in chambers. Thereafter, upon a final hearing, the injunction was perpetuated, and all costs ' adjudged against appellants. From this judgment appellants perfected an appeal to this court.

[1] It is contended by the appellants that both the elections alleged to have been held for the purpose of putting the hog law in force in the. subdivisions in question were *990 void, and the injunction should not have been granted, because the respective orders of the commissioners’ court directing said elections to be held were to determine whether “hogs, sheep, or goats” should be prohibited from running at large in said subdivisions; whereas, the respective petitions filed prayed for orders to determine whether “hogs, sheep, and goats” should be prohibited from running at large in said subdivisions. Under the facts and the law applicable thereto, this contention must be sustained. The law authorizing an election to determine whether hogs, sheep, or goats shall be prohibited from running at large in the subdivision of a county is a, quasi local or special law, and depends for its validity upon its adoption in conformity with the law permitting its adoption. So it has been held, in passing on local option statutes, that such laws must be Strictly construed, and every requisite of the statute, as to the petition, order of election, and other proceedings in reference thereto, must be complied with, or the election would be void. Prather v. State, 12 Tex. App. 401; Akin v. State, 14 Tex. App. 142; Ex parte Kramer, 19 Tex. App. 125. In the last case cited it' was held that, if the election was not conducted in accordance with the requirements of law, it is void, and not merely voidable, and all proceedings had under and by virtue' of such void elections absolutely void, and may be questioned, not only directly, but collaterally.

The statute authorizing an election of the character in question requires that a petition therefor be filed, specifying distinctly the class of .animals which it is desired to restrain from running at large, and the order for the election must conform to the petition. Ex parte Kimbrell, 47 Tex. Or. R. 333, 83 S. W. 382, The evidence in the case at bar discloses without contradiction, as contended by appellants, that the orders of the court directing the elections, in the respective subdivisions ini question, were to determine whether or not hogs, sheep, or goats should be prohibited from running at large in said subdivisions, and that the petitions prayed for an election tq determine whether or not hogs, sheep, and goats should be prohibited from running at large in said subdivisions. This being true, the orders for the elections did not conform to the petitions. They directed elections to be held, not to determine whether hogs, sheep, and goats should be prohibited from running at large, but whether hogs, sheep, or goats should be so prohibited, and as said in McElroy v. State, 39 Tex. Cr. R. 529, 47 S. W. 359, as submitted and voted upon, the voter necessarily voted in the alternative, and it -is therefore impossible to determine whether they intended to prohibit the running at large of one or all kinds of said stock. In other words, as the proposition was submitted and necessarily voted upon, it cannot be told which of the classes of animals mentioned they intended -should be prohibited from running at large, whether hogs, sheep, or goats; nor can it be said that they intended that all of the kinds mentioned should be prohibited from running at large.

The case of McElroy v. State, supra, is not in conflict with the cáse of Graves v. Rudd, 26 Tex. Civ. App. 554, 65 S. W. 63, decided by this court. In the latter case the election was asked to determine whether horses, mules, jacks, jennets, and cattle should be prohibited fropi running at large, and the petition, order for the election, and the notices of election “used the words ‘horses, mules, jacks, jennets, and cattle,’ while the order declaring the result of the election used the words ‘horses, mules, jacks, jennies, or cattle.’ ” As thus submitted, it is absolutely certain that the voter voted to prohibit all of the kinds of animals named in the petition and in the order for the election from running at large, and the mere erroneous use of the word “or” in the order declaring the result of the election, made after the election was held, could in no way render uncertain the class of animals which the voters intended to prohibit from running at large, or otherwise affect the validity of the election. In that case the voters voted to prohibit horses, mules, jacks, jennies, and cattle, not horses, mules, jacks, jennies, or cattle, from running at large, and the untrue statement in the order of the court declaring the result of the election could not operate to render the election void.

[2] It is further contended that the election of 1889 is void, for the reason that the petition praying for that election was filed during the term of the court at which the" order directing the election 'to be held was made. This contention is also well taken. The evidence without dispute shows that the commissioners’ court of Henderson county, at which the order was made authorizing the election of 1889, convened at a regular term of said court on the 12th day of August, 1889, and that the petition for the election, as shown by the file mark indorsed thereon, was filed on that day; that it was acted upon that day, and the election ordered to be held on the 28th day of September, 1889. The statute required that, upon the filing of the petition for stock law election, the commissioners’ court should, at its next regular term thereafter, pass an order directing an election to be held in the particular subdivision described in the petition, on a day to be designated in the order, not less than 30 days from the date of said order. This statute has been construed, and correctly so, to be mandatory, and to only authorize the making of the order at the next regular term of the commissioners’ court after the filing of the petition; that a petition filed during the term of the court cannot be acted upon at that term, because it is not the next succeed *991 ing term after the filing thereof. It was not competent, therefore, for the court to make the order for the election of 1889 at the same term the petition was filed, and, having made it at such term, the same was a nullity, and the election- held under and by virtue of it was void. Cox v. State, 88 S. W. 812.

The appellees contend that—

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Related

Coleman v. Hallum
232 S.W. 296 (Texas Commission of Appeals, 1921)

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Bluebook (online)
214 S.W. 989, 1919 Tex. App. LEXIS 1012, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hallum-v-coleman-texapp-1919.