Murray v. Broughton

Citations

• 46 Tex. 351

Syllabus

<p>Change of venue.—In October, 1876, an order was made by the district judge in Kaufman county, to transfer a cause which the presiding judge was disqualified from trying, to the county of Van Zandt. Tlie district clerk of Kaufman county refused to make out a t-ran-script of the entries and decrees in the case, and to forward them, together with the original papers in the cause, to Van Zandt count}’, as required by the order. On appeal by the plaintiff from the judgment of the District Court, refusing to award a mandamus against the clerk to compel a transfer of the papers in the cause: Held—</p> <p>1. That the disqualification of the district judge is not, under the present Constitution, a cause for a change of venue.</p> <p>2. When a district judge is disqualified, a special judge must be provided, as required by the act of 187G, (General Laws, sec. 3, p. 141.)</p> <p>3. The act of 1854, which provided for a change, of venue when a district judge was disqualified, cannot be upheld as a law now in force by see. 45, art. 3 of the Constitution of 1876, which provides that “the power to change the venue in civil and criminal cases shall be vested in the courts, to be exercised in such manner as shall he provided by law, and the Legislature shall pass laws for that purpose ; ” that section, as well as that part of section 56 in the same article which prohibits a special law changing the venue in civil or criminal cases, is designed as a limitation on the legislative power, and to require that a change of venue shall be a judicial act under a general law prescribed for that purpose.</p> <p>4. That the writ of mandamus was properly refused.</p>