Durrett v. Crosby

Citations

• 28 Tex. 687

Syllabus

<p>No principle is better settled, both on reason and authority, than that a mandamus will not issue to compel a public officer to perform an act, unless the act be clearly enjoined and defined by law, and be therefore ministerial in its character, neither involving the exercise of discretion nor admitting of any alternative. (Paschal’s Dig., Note 182; Art. 1407, Note 528.)</p> <p>The provision of the 11th section of the act of February 7, 1860, (Laws 8th Leg., p. 54,) authorizing the commissioner of the court of claims to re-examine and approve or reject land warrants and certificates which had been previously approved, were within the constitutional power of the legislature. (Paschal’s Dig., Arts. 1159, 1164.)</p> <p>On the trial of a suit for a mandamus to require the commissioner of the general land office to issue a patent on a land warrant rejected by the commissioner of claims on the re-examination authorized by the act above referred to, it is altogether immaterial that the holder of the warrant was, at a former period and by virtue of its original approval by the commissioner of claims, entitled to a patent upon it.</p> <p>The only mode by which a warrant or certificate rejected on re-examination by the commissioner of claims could again be made evidence for any purpose of a right to land was by the establishment of its validity in the manner provided in the statute itself. The commissioner of the general land office had no power or discretion to issue a patent on are-examined warrant or certificate, unless the commissioner of claims had approved it on the re-examination.</p> <p>In this proceeding for a mandamus to the commissioner of the general land office, it is immaterial to inquire into the motives or reasons which actuated the commissioner of claims in rej eating the warrant on its re-examination by him, for, no matter flow improper or erroneous may have been those motives or reasons, the commissioner of the land office had no authority to revise and