232 S.W. 296 | Tex. Comm'n App. | 1921
Plaintiffs sought and obtained an injunction restraining defendants from turning out their hogs and permitting them to run at large in two subdivisions of Henderson county, Tex. They alleged that, as a result of an election held in one of these subdivisions in 1889 and in the other in 1890, the law preventing hogs, goats, and sheep from running at large had been adopted in these subdivisions.
Defendants urged that the elections were void because the orders calling them were not to determine whether hogs goats, and sheep should be prohibited from running at large as prayed in the petition, but were to determine whether hogs, goats, or sheep should be prohibited from running at large.
If, as contended, the orders directed elections to determine whether hogs, goats, or sheep should be prohibited from running at large, it would be impossible to determine whether the voters intended to prohibit one or all classes of animals mentioned from running at large. But the orders construed as an entirety are not susceptible of that construction. Each order states that the petition requests an election to determine whether hogs, goats, and sheep shall be permitted to run at large. Included within each order is a copy of the petition, which contains a prayer for an election to determine whether hogs, goats, and sheep shall be permitted to run at large. Each order concludes:
“And it appearing to the court that said petition is in due form of law, and is signed and presented to this court by more than 20 freeholders of the said subdivisions of said county, it is therefore ordered by the court that said petition be, and is hereby, granted, and [an] election is hereby ordered to be held in said subdivision at * * * to determine whether hogs, goats, or sheep shall be permitted to run at large in said subdivision of [said] county.”
Upon appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals was of opinion that the elections were void, and therefore reversed and rendered the judgment of the district court. 214 S. W. 989.
The honorable Court of Civil Appeals cites McElroy v. State, 39 Tex. Cr. R. 529, 47 S. W. 359, by our Court of Criminal Appeals, as authority for holding the election void. The published opinion in that case does not contain the order calling the election, but it is clear from a reading of the opinion that the decision is bottomed upon the proposition that the order in that case was for an election to determine whether hogs, goats, or sheep should be permitted to run at large, and that the question was submitted and voted upon in that form. The facts are therefore essentially different from the facts of this case.
“Upon the filing of such petition the commissioner’s court, at its next regular term thereafter, shall pass an order directing an election to be held throughout the county, or the particular subdivision thereof, as the case may be, on a day to be designated in the order, not less than 30 days from the date of such order.”
The object of the provision of this article was to require prompt action by the commissioner’s court in calling such elections. The language employed is not a limitation upon the power of the court to call such elections at the term at which the petition therefor is filed; it is but a direction to the commissioner’s court to call the election prayed for at the next succeeding term of the court after the filing of the petition. The
Our Court of Criminal Appeals in Robertson v. State, 44 Tex. Cr. R. 270, 70 S. W. 542, reached a different conclusion in construing this statute. It held that a petition filed during a regular term of the commissioner’s court could not be acted upon by the court at that term. With all due deference to that court, we do not feel constrained to follow it in its construction of this article.
There is evidence in the record by the witness Watkins that the county judge issued his proclamation in both elections, declaring the result. The proclamation declaring the result raises the presumption that everything necessary to a legal election had been done. Chapman v. State, 37 Tex. Cr. R. 167, 39 S. W. 113; Ewing v. Duncan, 81 Tex. 230, 16 S. W. 1000.
The facts stated in the petition clearly and rightfully call for the assertion of the equitable powers of the court. The petition charged that plaintiff had planted and had growing upon his premises large fields of wheat and oats, and also had large quantities of corn, peanuts, and cotton upon his land subject to the depredations of several hundred of defendants’ hogs, and that the loss occasioned by such depredations would be irreparable. An agreed statement by the parties show that defendants had turned out their -hogs, and that they were running at large prior to the granting of the injunctive relief.
The remedy given by the statute is of very doubtful adequacy. The well-known destructive nature of the hog is so great that it takes one of them but a small period of time to destroy several times its value, and it takes no imagination whatever to approximate the probable destruction that several hundred of them may cause to growing and gathered crops subject to their depredations. Again, the depredations might take place unseen by the party whose property is damaged, and the damage done not discovered until the hogs had moved on to inflict injuries upon another neighbor. Identification of the hogs in such cases would generally be impossible. In such instances, the statute would afford the injured party no remedy whatever. For these, and many other reasons, which might be given, the court did not err in granting the relief sought. Sumner v. Grawford, 91 Tex. 129, 41 S. W. 994.
We have considered all of defendants’ assignments, and are of opinion that they should be overruled, and that the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals should be reversed, and that of the trial court affirmed, and we so recommend.
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