International Fidelity Insurance Co. of Newark v. Sheriff of Dallas County

476 S.W.2d 115, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2659
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 13, 1972
Docket7310
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 476 S.W.2d 115 (International Fidelity Insurance Co. of Newark v. Sheriff of Dallas County) 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
International Fidelity Insurance Co. of Newark v. Sheriff of Dallas County, 476 S.W.2d 115, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2659 (Tex. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinions

KEITH, Justice.

Appellant is a foreign insurance corporation organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey and has a permit to do business in Texas. It was engaged in the business of writing bail bonds for approval by the Sheriff of Dallas County, Texas, and had been so engaged for approximately one year before this litigation began. During that time, it had written bail bonds having a principal amount in excess of one million dollars. The Sheriff of Dallas County promulgated an order to the effect that all sureties upon bail bonds tendered in the future would be required to subscribe to the affidavit set out in Art. 17.13, Vernon’s Annotated Code of Criminal Procedure. Such order denied corporate sureties the right to become surety upon bail bonds of prisoners confined in the county jail. Appellant instituted suit under the Declaratory Judgments Act seeking a declaration that the provisions of Art. 7.19-1, Insurance Code of Texas, V.A.T.S., were controlling and that the Sheriff was legally wrong in placing his reliance upon Art. 17.13, C.C.P.

Upon the trial of the cause to the court, it was established, without question, that appellant had received a “Certificate of Authority” from the State Board of Insurance of the State of Texas which read in part as follows:

“THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT INTERNATIONAL FIDELITY INSURANCE COMPANY NEWARK, NEW JERSEY has complied with the laws of the State of Texas applicable thereto and is hereby authorized to transact the business of Fidelity and Surety Insurance within the State of Texas. This Certificate of Authority shall be in full force and effect until it is revoked, canceled or suspended according to law.”

Another certificate from the State Board of Insurance of the State of Texas was introduced in evidence, the material part reading:

“Pursuant to Article 21.29 of the Texas Insurance Code, I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT INTERNATIONAL FIDELITY INSURANCE COMPANY NEWARK, NEW JERSEY has in all respects complied with the laws of Texas in relation to insurance.”

It was shown that appellant had on deposit with the State Treasurer of the State of Texas the required deposit of $50,000 in the form of two certificates of deposit executed by banks domiciled in Texas. See Art. 8.05, Insurance Code. Appellant made no effort to show that it had any other property in Texas subject to execution.

The Sheriff and his bail bond deputy testified that two other corporate sureties had gone bankrupt leaving bail bonds upon which they were sureties uncollectible after forefeiture. There was testimony that appellant also wrote bail bonds in several other counties in Texas but the face amount outstanding is not shown in our record. The record reflects that there were not any unpaid final bond forfeiture judgments pending against the appellant at the time of the hearing in the trial court.

The trial court, at the conclusion of the hearing, denied all relief sought by appellant and an appeal was duly perfected to the Court of Civil Appeals in and for the Fifth Supreme Judicial District of Texas, at Dallas. The cause has been transferred to this court by the Supreme Court in an equalization of the dockets of the several intermediate appellate courts.

Appellant contends that since it is an insurance company regulated by the State Board of Insurance and subject to the provisions of the Insurance Code, it is permitted to become surety upon bail bonds without reference to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure mentioned above. A subsidiary contention is that as [118]*118a matter of law, the Sheriff had no discretion in passing upon the sufficiency of the bonds upon which appellant had become surety. The contentions so advanced require us to examine the status of appellant and its right to become surety upon bail bonds.

The Sheriff relies upon the provisions of Art. 17.13, Code of Criminal Procedure, which we quote in the margin.1 We also quote in the margin the pertinent provisions of Art. 7.19-1, Insurance Code, relied upon by the appellant.2

Strangely, the parties rely upon the same rule of statutory construction, viz., that where conflicts exist between two statutes, one general and one special, the special statute controls over the general statute as to such conflict. E. g., State v. Balli, 144 Tex. 195, 190 S.W.2d 71, 86 (1945); Sam Bassett Lumber Co. v. City of Houston, 145 Tex. 492, 198 S.W.2d 879 (1947). From this premise, appellant argues the statute found in the Code of Criminal Procedure is the general statute while that appearing in the Insurance Code is the special — and controlling — statute. The Sheriff takes the opposite position.

Neither party cites to us some of the other rules governing statutory construction; namely, that the objective of the court, when called upon to construe legislative enactments, is to ascertain the purpose of the legislature in the enactment of the laws relating to the particular matter; and, the intention of the legislature is to be ascertained from the language of the statutes and to give effect to all laws bearing upon the same subject, although announced at different sessions of the legislature. See, Duval Corporation v. Sadler, 407 S.W.2d 493, 497 (Tex.Sup.1966).

When the legislature made a comprehensive revision of the bail bond statutes in 1965, it again made provision for the use of the corporate surety in Art. 17.06, Code of Criminal Procedure.3 The succeeding [119]*119article provided for the recordation of powers of attorney. In Art. 17.11, C.C.P. a single surety upon a bail bond is authorized if “such surety is worth at least double the amount of the sum for which he is bound, . and that he is a resident of this State, and has property therein liable to execution worth the sum for which he is bound.”

It seems clear to us that the legislature, when it made the comprehensive revision of the bail bond statutes, permitted two types of surety upon bail bonds: individuals and insurance companies. No statute of general application vested in any agency the right to determine the sufficiency of individual sureties and that determination was entrusted to the discretion of the approving official. As to the corporate surety, there was a statute of general application which vested the determination of the sufficiency of the insurance companies as sureties upon the State Board of Insurance. See Art. 1.04(b), Insurance Code. This power, by virtue of the statute, was delegated to the Commissioner of Insurance. Id. The legislature determined that upon compliance with the provisions of the code, and the deposit of $50,000 with the state treasurer, such company was authorized to do business in this state. Art. -8.05, Insurance Code. The question of compliance with the laws with reference to solvency was entrusted to the Commissioner of Insurance and an elaborate statutory scheme of regulation was adopted for insurance companies such as is involved here. See, “Subchapter B. Casualty Insurance and Fidelity, Guaranty and Surety Bonds,” Art. 5.13 et seq., Insurance Code. Taken with the long-standing judicial interpretation of Art.

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Bluebook (online)
476 S.W.2d 115, 1972 Tex. App. LEXIS 2659, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/international-fidelity-insurance-co-of-newark-v-sheriff-of-dallas-county-texapp-1972.