Soto v. State

171 S.W. 279, 1914 Tex. App. LEXIS 889
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 25, 1914
DocketNo. 411.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 171 S.W. 279 (Soto 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
Soto v. State, 171 S.W. 279, 1914 Tex. App. LEXIS 889 (Tex. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinion

HIGGINS, J.

The state of Texas by its

district attorney filed suit against Miguel Soto, R. Salazar, and A. P. Brunswick, alleging: That they were in possession and control of a house in the city of El Paso, the said place being commonly known as the “Ureka Club and Socorro Mutua Mexicana,” which purports to have its headquarters and place of business in said house. That defendants have been habitually using said premises as a disorderly house, and threaten and contemplate continuing to so use same; that said premises is a disorderly house in this: That therein spirituous, vinous, and malt liquors were sold in quantities of one gallon and less to be drunk on the premises and so kept for sale, without defendants having first obtained a license under the laws of this state to retail such liquors, and there is no person or corporation having a license under the law to retail liquor on said premises. An injunction was prayed restraining .defendants from using said premises for the purpose of selling spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors and from keeping for sale therein such liquors and from selling same on said premises. Upon an ex parte hearing a temporary injunction was ordered issued in all things as prayed for, such injunction to be subject to the further order of the court. From this order this appeal is prosecuted.

Article 496, Penal Code, defines a “disorderly house” to be “any house in which spirituous, vinous or malt liquors are sold or kept for sale, without first' having obtained a license under the laws o'f this state to retail such liquors.” Article 503, Penal Code, provides that:

“The habitual, actual, threatened or contemplated use of any premises, place, building or part thereof, for the purpose of keeping * * * a disorderly house, shall be enjoined at the suit of either the state or any citizen thereof.”

And- by article 505 of the Penal Code it is provided that the procedure in such cases shall be the same as in other suits for injunction, as near as may be, except that the petition need not be verified.

The facts alleged relating to the past and threatened and contemplated use of the house plainly show that such use is for purposes which bring it clearly within the definition of a disorderly house as defined above.

There are no facts stated in the petition from which it might be reasonably deduced— under other supposable facts connected with the subject — that the defendants were dispensing liquors to members of a bona fide club under circumstances. which dispensed with the necessity of a license.

The suit is against Soto, Salazar, and Brunswick as individuals, and the averments that the alleged disorderly house is known as-the Ureka Club and Socorro Mutua Mexicana, etc., are wholly superfluous. In this connection, it may be remarked that while a bona fide club, situated in a precinct, city, or-town where liquor may be lawfully sold, organized for xourposes permitted and sanctioned by law, and which, as a mere incident to-its organization and without profit, furnished liquor to its members and not to the public generally, is not a person, under the laws of this state, engaged in the occupation or business of selling intoxicating liquors and cannot be enjoined under the provisions of the law here considered, but in respect to clubs not organized in good faith for purposes authorized by law, but merely as shifts, shields, or subterfuges, such sales would not be permitted, and under such circumstances they would and should be held to be disorderly houses and as such may be enjoined. State of Texas v. Duke, 104 Tex. 355, 137 S. W. 654, 138 S. W. 385; Adams v. State, (Cr. App.) 145 S. W. 940.

The allegations of the petition are not subject to the objection that they lack the directness, certainty, and particularity required in petitions for injunction.

The fifth assignment complains of the-issuance of a preliminary injunction upon the ground that it was not prayed for. The prayer in this respect was not as certain as it should have been, but, considered as a whole, it sufficiently appears that a preliminary injunction was being sought.

Error is also assigned to the action of the court in granting the injunction without notice to the defendants. This was a matter within the discretion of the trial court, and, no abuse of this discretion being apparent, its. action in so doing, is not reversible. Commissioners, etc., v. Nichols, 142 S. W. 37; Holbein v. De La Garza, 126 S. W. 42.

In this connection, howevex-, it is desired to express our disapproval of the practice of granting temporary injunctions without notice.

*281 In Holbein v. De La Garza, 126 S. W. 42, it is said:

“As to the issuance of the prohibitory injunction without notice, much must be left 'to the sound discretion of the judge. Article 2994, Revised Statutes [1895], provides: ‘Upon application for any writ of injunction, if it appears to the judge that delay will not prove injurious to either party and that justice may be subserved thereby, he may cause notice of such application to be served upon the opposite party, his agent or attorney, in such manner as he may direct, and fix a time and place for the hearing' of such application.’ The petition in this case, we think, discloses no reason why notice should not have been given before the issuance of a writ so sweeping in its character as was ordered in this case. ‘Audi alteran partem’ is one of the maxims of the old civil law, and the doctrine that a man should not be condemned without a hearing is not only the instinct of justice, but this spirit breathes through the whole system of common law and specially through 'our system of equity, as distinguished from law, which seeks to temper the harshness of the common' law and bring it more in harmony with the principles of abstract justice. It is rarely, under our equity procedure in regard to the issuance' of injunctions, that it becomes necessary to issue a temporary writ of injunction, even a merely prohibitory writ, without a hearing. If it appears necessary from the allegations of the petition that a defendant be stopped at once and without the delay necessary to give notice and an opportunity to be heard, a temporary restraining order may in all cases be issued compelling immediate cessation of the threatened injury until such time as may be reasonably required to allow the defendant to present his side of the case, which may change the whole aspect of the controversy. If it be said, in answer, that a defendant may obviate this difficulty by a motion to dissolve, wherein he may fully present his objections to the issuance of the writ, the reply is apt and conclusive that, under the peculiar rule adopted by the Legislature allowing appeals from an order granting a temporary injunction, but not to an order refusing to vacate on motion to dissolve, a defendant would ordinarily lose, by lapse of time, his right to appeal from'the order granting an injunction if he delayed until his motion to> dissolve could be heard. It is, we think, a serious omission in the law on this subject that no appeal is given from an order overruling a motion to dissolve.”

Again, in Holman v. Cowden, 158 S. W. 571, it is said:

“Appellant also makes objection to the order granting the injunction, on the ground that it was granted without notice. .

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171 S.W. 279, 1914 Tex. App. LEXIS 889, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/soto-v-state-texapp-1914.