520 S.W.3d 28 | Tex. | 2017
delivered the opinion of the Court.
People of goodwill can debate Alexander Hamilton’s description of the judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch.
The issue in this long-running dispute is who has the authority to set the compensation of a county judicial employee: the Galveston County Commissioners Court or Galveston County district judges? One side (County Judge Mark Henry) contends this case boils down to a staffing squabble, a simple budgetary beef, and the Commissioners Court has sole salary-setting power. The other side (the local district judges) frames it as a grave separation-of-powers battle, a clash over judicial independence, and the trial court had authority to order the Commissioners Court to pay a specific salary.
Both depictions are on point: This is a war-of-wills dispute pitting the legislative powers of the Commissioners Court against the inherent supervisory power of the judicial branch. But Texas law provides a ready answer.
The Government Code divides power, letting commissioners set a salary range while letting local judges decide if compensation within that range is reasonable. The judicial branch may direct the Commissioners Court to set a new range, but it cannot dictate a specific salary outside that range. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment and remand to the trial court.
I. Factual Background
Galveston County, like all Texas counties, is governed by a commissioners court.
After a job posting for a new DJA was advertised, District Judge Cox issued a sua sponte order requiring Judge Henry to reinstate Quiroga. After significant back- and-forth between the district judges and the Commissioners Court, the parties agreed to a so-called “work-around provision,” resulting in the creation of an entirely new position: the Director of Court Administration (DCA). This position was stripped of all non-court-related responsibilities such as maintaining the law library and collecting fees and was to be supervised by the administrative judges. The judges
The Commissioners Court’s June 2015 agenda included an anticipated discussion of the application to create the DCA position. But before the Commissioners Court could deal with the proposal, the area judges, led by Judge Cox, informed the Commissioners Court that the judges intended to reinstate Quiroga at her former salary of $113,000, but with the lessened job duties commensurate with the proposed DCA position. Judge Cox followed up the notification with another order aimed at Judge Henry and the Commissioners Court, ordering compliance with his first order and all of the details included in the judges’ notification to the Commissioners Court.
Eventually the Commissioners Court did consider and accept the proposed DCA position, along with most of the judges’ suggestions: (1) the administrative judges would have supervisory authority over the DCA; (2) the DCA’s job duties would include only court-related responsibilities; and (3) the area judges could pick the appointee (including Quiroga). The Commissioners Court titled the position “Court
Judge Cox filed suit—in his own district court, but before a visiting judge—against Judge Henry, arguing the salary range for the new position was unreasonable. The trial court issued a temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction requiring Judge Henry to: (1) reinstate Quiroga to her old job title of DJA; (2) carve out any non-court-related duties and ensure Quiroga was doing the work of the DGA/ Case Manager position; and (3) pay Quiro-ga her old salary of $113,000 for the new position with decreased duties. A divided court of appeals affirmed, holding the evidence presented at the hearing on the temporary injunction supported the trial court’s findings.
II.Analysis
County Judge Henry argues the trial court erred when it issued the temporary injunction because: (1) the order should have been directed to the Commissioners Court, not just to Judge Henry; (2) the trial court exceeded its authority when it directed Quiroga be reinstated at her former salary of $113,000; and (3) the temporary injunction failed to appropriately maintain the “status quo” pending trial. We agree with Judge Henry on the first two issues, and therefore do not reach the third issue.
We review a trial court’s order granting a temporary injunction for clear abuse of discretion.
A. The Individual Commissioners—Or at Least the Commissioners Court— Are Indispensable Parties
Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 39 governs the joinder of indispensable parties.
In 1890, we held in Gaal v. Townsend that when a party seeks to compel a specific action or the performance of a certain duty, “all persons charged with the performance of that duty must be made parties defendant in the writ.”
District Judge Cox argues that Gaal is inapposite, in part, because of our holding almost a century later in Vondy v.
Judge Cox misses key takeaway points from Vondy—namely, how and why we distinguished it from Gaal. We noted that Gaal had failed to name anyone other than the county judge in his petition, even though a majority vote from the commissioners would be necessary to allow him to take his seat.
Judge Cox also quotes from our decision in Brooks v. Northglen Association for the proposition that “it will be rare indeed” for a reviewing court to determine the trial court lacked jurisdiction when the party waives the argument and the absent party participated in the trial.
It would be improper to hold that, because County Judge Henry may have fired Quiroga unilaterally, the trial court can now order Judge Henry to act unilaterally. Judge Henry’s decision to terminate Quiroga was ratified by the Commissioners Court. Regardless, this case is not about Judge Henry’s authority to fire Quiroga in the first place. Rather, we must determine whether the trial court had the authority to order Judge Henry to act in place of the Commissioners Court.
Finally, it matters not that the temporary-injunction order purported to compel the actions of Judge Henry and all those “acting in concert” with him. A county judge presides over the commissioners court,
B. The Trial Court Lacked the Authority to Dictate the Administrator’s Specific Salary Outside the Designated Range
A quarter-century ago we observed “[t]he powers and duties of the commissioners courts include aspects,of legislative, executive, administrative,, and judicial functions.”
Our precedent also recognizes the judicial branch’s inherent or implied authority, authority derived not from statute but born of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers and “woven into the fabric of the constitution by virtue of their origin in the common law.”
This authority includes, in part, the ability to compel the necessary money to compensate county employees who assist in carrying out the courts’ responsibilities.
Judge Cox argues that he, and by extension the trial court, was exercising this supervisory authority over the Commissioners Court when he ordered Judge Henry to reinstate Quiroga at her old salary. He argues that without the ability to order, by injunction' or mandamus, the Commissioners Court to set a specific sala
But the judiciary’s constitutionally conferred supervision over a commissioners court is not boundless. When exercising what the Constitution calls “general supervisory control,” a court may not usurp legislative authority by substituting its policy judgment for that of the commissioners court acting as a legislative body.
Government Code section 75.401 is such a law. In 2015 the Legislature clarified the salary-setting roles of commissioners and district judges vis-á-vis court administrators. Under section 75.401, the district judges (“the judges served”) determine if compensation is “reasonable,” but the range is “set by the commissioners court.”
As we read the Constitution and the Government Code, the judiciary’s role is not to dictate the salaries of county judicial administrators, other than within the range as the statute allows. Article V of the former gives commissioners courts “power[ ] and jurisdiction over all county business,” and section 75.401(d) of the latter gives them exclusive authority to set a court administrator’s salary range.
This is not to say the judges served may hold the commissioners court hostage by endlessly claiming the chosen salary range is “unreasonable.”
III. Conclusion
Our ingenious constitutional design features “three distinct departments,” none of which “shall exercise any power properly attached to either of the others.”
Here, the county’s judicial branch encroached on the county’s legislative branch, the Commissioners Court, which was performing a constitutionally and statutorily authorized function.
In this case, the trial court lacked the authority—constitutional, statutory, inherent, or otherwise—to require County Judge Henry to reinstate a county judicial employee at a specific salary. At most, the trial court should have directed the Commissioners Court to reset the range. As it stands, however, the trial court lacked the authority to bind the Commissioners Court in the first place, because Judge Cox failed to name anyone but Judge Henry in the request for injunctive relief. The trial court thus erred in issuing the temporary injunction.
We trust the parties, all public servants of goodwill, will reach a collaborative agreement sooner rather than later. As for this dispute, we REVERSE the court of appeals’ judgment and REMAND to the
. "A recent Zogby International poll not only found that Americans knew the names of the Three Stooges and not of the three branches of government, it also found that most people could name two of Snow White's seven dwarfs, but only 25 percent could name two U.S. Supreme Court justices." Clifton Barnes, Least Understood Branch: ABA project aims to inform public about the judicial system, Bar Leader, American Bar Association (Nov.-Dec. 2006), available at http://www.americanbar. org/publications/bar_leader/2006_07/3102/lub. html. See also Daniella Diaz, 10% of College Graduates Think Judge Judy Is on the Supreme Court, CNN, Jan. 19, 2016, available at http:// www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/politics/judge-judy-supreme-court-poll/ (citing a report released by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni that concluded our nation’s college graduates are “alarmingly ignorant of America’s history and heritage”).
. U.S. Const. arts. I-III.
. Tex. Const. art. II, § 1.
. Eichelberger v. Eichelberger, 582 S.W.2d 395, 398 (Tex. 1979) (internal quotations omitted).
. Tex. Const. art V, § 18(b) (a county commissioners court "shall exercise ... power[ ] and jurisdiction over all county business”).
. Under our Constitution, the county judge is the "presiding officer” of a county's commissioners court. Id,
. The application for the new position was formally submitted by Judge Lonnie Cox, Judge Barbara E. Roberts, and Judge Kimberly Sullivan, the administrative judges for the Galveston County District Courts, County Courts at Law and Probate Court, respectively.
. See Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 151.002.
. The 84th Legislature amended relevant portions of section 75.401 as follows:
(d) A court administrator- is entitled to reasonable compensation, as determined by the judges served and in the salary range for the position, as set by the commissioners court.
(e) The judges of the courts served by the court administrator, with the approval of the commissioners court, shall appoint appropriate staff and support personnel according to the needs of the local jurisdiction.
Act of May 30, 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., ch. 966, § 2, 2015 Tex. Gen. Laws 3410, 3410-11 (codified at Tex. Gov’t Code § 75.401(d)-(e)). Once these changes to the statute took effect (on Sept. 1, 2015), the Commissioners Court intended to retitle the DCA position once again—this time from "Court Manager” to "Court Administrator,” presumably -to match the specific language in the statute. See Tex. Gov’t Code § 75.401(e).
. Henry v. Cox, 483 S.W.3d 119, 159 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2015).
. Id. at 159-60.
. Id. at 160 (Harvey Brown, J., concurring and dissenting in part).
. Id.
. Walling v. Metcalfe, 863 S.W.2d 56, 58 (Tex. 1993).
. Davis v. Huey, 571 S.W.2d 859, 861-62 (Tex. 1978).
. Butnaru v. Ford Motor Co., 84 S.W.3d 198, 204 (Tex. 2002).
. Id. at 211.
. Tex. R. Civ. P. 39.
. Tex. R. Civ. P. 39(a)(1).
. Tex R. Civ. P. 39(b).
. Id.
. 77 Tex. 464, 14 S.W. 365, 365 (1890).
. Id.
. Id. The Texas State Historical Association names Ysleta as one of, if not the, oldest towns in Texas. It has now been incorporated as a part of the city of El Paso. Nancy Hamilton, "Ysleta, Texas,” Handbook of Texas Online, June 15, 2010, available through the Texas State Historical Association at https:// tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hny 06.
. Gaal, 14 S.W. at 365.
. Id. at 365-66.
. Id. at 366.
. Id.
. City of Austin v. Cahill, 99 Tex. 172, 88 S.W. 542, 548 (1905) (holding "those who are to perform the command of the writ” are necessary parties).
. 620 S.W.2d 104 (Tex. 1981).
. Id. at 107-08.
. See id. at 108.
. Id. at 107; see also Gaal, 14 S.W. at 365.
. Vondy, 620 S.W.2d at 107.
. Id. (“[T]he fact that the commissioners court itself was named in the petition distinguishes this cause from Gaal v. Townsend[.]”).
. 141 S.W.3d 158, 162-63 (Tex. 2004).
. Clint Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Marquez, 487 S.W.3d 538, 558 (Tex. 2016).
. Werner v. Colwell, 909 S.W.2d 866, 870 (Tex. 1995).
. Brooks, 141 S.W.3d at 163.
. Tex. Const. art. V, § 18(b).
. Gaal, 14 S.W, at 365-66.
. Ector Cty. v. Stringer, 843 S.W.2d 477, 478 (Tex. 1992).
. Tex. Const. art. II, § 1.
. Eichelberger, 582 S.W.2d at 398.
. See Vondy, 620 S.W.2d at 109-10. The judicial branch must be allowed to compel sums of money from the legislative branch, “If this were not so, a legislative body could destroy the judiciary by refusing to adequately fund the courts.” Id. at 110.
. Id.
. Id, ("The judicial system of this state cannot function properly if those officials who are responsible for carrying out certain duties in that process are not properly compensated.”).
. Id.
. Tex. Const. art. V, § 8 (“The District Court shall have appellate jurisdiction and general supervisory control over the County Commissioners Court, with such exceptions and under such regulations as may be prescribed by law.”).
. Vondy, 620 S.W.2d at 109.
. Stringer, 843 S.W.2d at 479.
. Id. (quoting Lewis v. City of Fort Worth, 126 Tex. 458, 89 S.W.2d 975, 978 (1936)).
. Tex. Const. art. V, § 8.
. Tex. Gov’t Code § 75.401(d).
. Tex. Const. art. V, § 18(b); Tex. Gov't Code § 75.401(d).
. Tex. Const. art. V, § 8; see also Tex Gov’t Code § 75.401(d).
. See Tex. Gov’t Code § 75.401(d) (“A court administrator is entitled to reasonable compensation ... as set by the commissioners court”) (emphasis added).
. Yoakum Cty. v. Gaines Cty., 139 Tex. 442, 163 S.W.2d 393, 396 (1942).
. Id.; see also Stringer, 843 S.W.2d at 479.
. Stringer, 843 S.W.2d at 479.
. Tex. Const. art. II, § 1.
. In re State Bd. for Educator Certification, 452 S.W.3d 802, 808 n.39 (Tex. 2014).
. Terrazas v. Ramirez, 829 S.W.2d 712, 733 (Tex. 1991).
. See Tex Const. art. V, § 18(b); Tex Gov’t Code § 75.401(d).
. Tex Gov’t Code § 75.401(d) ("A court administrator is entitled to reasonable compensation, as determined by the judges served and in the salary range for the position, as set by the commissioners court.").