Ormes v. Quinn

113 S.W.2d 242, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 786
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 27, 1938
DocketNo. 3613.
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 113 S.W.2d 242 (Ormes v. Quinn) 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
Ormes v. Quinn, 113 S.W.2d 242, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 786 (Tex. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

WALTHALL, Justice.

On the 8th day of November, 1932, plaintiff in error, A. E. Ormes, was elected to the office of constable of precinct No. 1 of Camp county, Tex., and qualified as constable on January 1, 1933. On the 10th day of October, 1933, a petition was filed in the district court of Camp county by the district attorney, joined by the county attorney of Camp county, in the name of the state of Texas, upon the relation of O. L. Phillips, wherein plaintiff in error was charged with offenses and misconduct in office authorizing his removal from office. The petition was attempted to be verified as follows.

“State of Texas, County of Camp.
“I, the undersigned O. L. Phillips, after being duly sworn, state on my oath that the facts set forth in the above and foregoing petition, in which I am the relator, is true to the best of my knowledge and belief.”

The petition was subscribed and sworn to before the district clerk of Camp county.

The petition was presented to the Honorable I. N. Williams, judge of the district court of Camp county, on October 17, 1933; the judge entered an order that citation accompanied by a certified copy of the petition be served upon plaintiff in error, which was done.

- Thereafter the said district and county attorneys made their motion in the cause, in which motion they represented that a petition had been filed in said court against A. E. Ormes wherein he was charged with official misconduct and a prayer that an order be entered suspending him from office of constable during the pendency of the ouster proceedings and so long as there is indictment pending against him charging a felony.

The district judge entered an order suspending Ormes from office “during the pendency of the above styled and numbered cause.” In the same order the judge *243 appointed W. S. Quinn as constable pro tem, and fixed his official bond at $500, on his qualifying. Quinn qualified, his bond was approved, with W. A. Kennedy, W. M. Hull, and C. H. McCluer, as sureties, on October 21, 1933, and Quinn entered upon the duties of the office under said appointment. The record does not disclose Ormes’ answer to the removal suit other than a general demurrer. The case was. submitted to the court at the October term, 1935, when the court- sustained Ormes’ general demurrer, and gave the relator plaintiff leave to amend and apparently continued the case, or took it under advisement. The removal suit was never tried on its merits, but at the October term, 1936, of the district court of Camp county, the relator having refused to amend, the suit was by order of the court dismissed from the docket of said court, Ormes’ term of office having then expired.

The present suit was brought by A. E. Ormes as plaintiff against W. S.. Quinn and against W. A. Kennedy, W. M. Hull, and C. H. McCluer, as defendants, on Quinn’s official bond as sureties, to recover the value of the fees which he alleges he could and would have received during his term of office as constable had he not been wrongfully re'moved from office.

By an exhibit filed in the suit plaintiff itemizes the cases tried and disposed of showing the constable fees collected and not collected, and for which he sues.

To plaintiff in error’s suit, defendants answer by general demurrer and general denial.

The court sustained defendants’ general demurrer, and plaintiff having refused to amend, the suit was dismissed and plaintiff prosecutes this appeal by writ of error.

Opinion.

Plaintiff in error filed assignments of error, and thereunder presents propositions to the effect that the removal petition alleging grounds for removal of a public officer shall be sworn to at or before its filing, article 5977, and that the ' removal petition in this case was not verified as required by the statutes, and that the statute being penal in its nature, the removal order of the court on the unverified petition was void.

The verification of the petition for the removal of plaintiff from the office of constable being true, only to the best knowledge arid belief of the relator, the trial judge held on a hearing that the petition was not sufficiently verified and dismissed the removal suit. The trial court, on the state’s motion, issued an order suspending plaintiff from office pending the hearing on the removal petition, and appointed Quinn to serve as constable pending such hearing. '

In this suit plaintiff alleges that he was removed from the office, and that is the character of suit now before us.

■ Defendants in error object to a consideration by this court of plaintiff in error’s propositions because they do not comply with the rules for briefing, in that they present only abstract propositions of law.

We have concluded to consider the sufficiency of the petition as against the general demurrer. There is, however, some confusion in the record as alleged in plaintiff in error’s petition as to the proceedings had in the removal suit, in that the record, in fact and as pleaded, shows that no trial was had in the removal suit and that no order, judgment, or decree of removal was ever rendered or entered, but instead the record as pleaded affirmatively shows that the trial court, on the state’s motion, under article 5982 of the statute, temporarily suspended Ormes from the office and appointed Quinn to serve in his stead, and later sustained a demurrer to the relator’s petition and dismissed the removal suit.

However, considering plaintiff in error’s' petition independent of the above matters, we have concluded that it is subject to the demurrer. The temporary order of suspension as entered by the trial court is interlocutory, is in no sense the same thing as a removal, and is not a final judgment or decree of removal from office. Griner v. Thomas, 101 Tex. 36, 104 S.W. 1058, 16 Ann. Cas. 944.

Former article 6049, Rev.St.1911, and our present article 5982, of the Statute, provides that on a temporary suspension from . office, the judge may appoint for the tirne being some other person to discharge the duties of the office, and that the person appointed shall execute a bond in such sum as the judge shall name, with at least two sureties, and on such condition as the judge may sec fit to impose, to pay the person so suspended from office all damages and costs that he may have *244 sustained by reason of such suspension from office, “in case it should appear that the cause or causes of removal are insufficient or untrue.”

The bond pleaded by plaintiff in error is in the usual form of such bonds and obligates Quinn to pay to Ormes all damages and costs that he may sustain by reason of suspension from office “in case it should appear that the cause or causes of removal are insufficient or untrue, then this obligation to be void.”

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Bluebook (online)
113 S.W.2d 242, 1938 Tex. App. LEXIS 786, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ormes-v-quinn-texapp-1938.