City of Austin v. Walton

Citations

• 68 Tex. 507
• 5 S.W. 70
• 1887 Tex. LEXIS 726

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence—City Ordinances.—Courts will not take judicial knowledge of the ordinances of a municipal corporation. .They stand on the same footing as private and special statutes, the laws of other States and of foreign countries, and must be averred and proved like other facts. In pleading, the ordinance need not be set forth in totiedem verbis, but the contents of an ordinance under which a right is claimed should be substantially stated, and not the conclusion of the pleader as to its scope and legal effect.</p> <p>2. Same—City Attorney.—A city ordinance allowed the city attorney, among other things, ten per cent on all monies collected for the city. Six months afterwards another ordinance fixed his salary at six hundred dollars, and prescribed specific fees in cases of conviction of those prosecuted by him, also the amount to be allowed him for each case attended to in the mayor’s court, in justices’ courts, the county court, the district and Supreme courts. Less than a month after the last ordinance was passed, both ordinances were incorporated in a revision of the ordinances (except the clause relating to fees in the mayor’s court), which was adopted by the city government. In a suit by the city attorney to collect from the city ten ner cent commissions on the amounts collected by him held: That the ordinances were not necessarily repugnant, and that both should be given effect. The city attorney was entitled, under the language of the ordinance, to the ten per cent on all fines collected by the city, whether he contributed in promoting their collection or not.</p>