Rains v. Simpson

Citations

• 50 Tex. 495

Syllabus

<p>1. Liability of officers.—Judicial officers are not liable to personal actions for official acts within their jurisdiction.</p> <p>2. Same.—This exemption extends not only to negligent, but to willful and malicious acts.</p> <p>3. Ministerial officers.—Judicial officers may be liable for their acts or refusal to act in regard to duties which are ministerial, and which duties are imposed upon them.</p> <p>4. Same.—Where the law prescribes and defines the duties to be performed with such precision and certainty as to leave nothing to the exercise of discretion or judgment, the act is ministerial; but where tlie act to be done involves the exercise of discretion or judgment, it is not to be deemed ministerial.</p> <p>5. Same.—Ministerial acts may be defined by adopting the rules allowing the writ of mandamus.</p> <p>6. Judicial act.—By section 20 of article 5 of the Constitution of • 1869, the justices of the peace of the county constituted a court having the same jurisdiction formerly exercised by the Commissioners’ and Police Courts, which constituted the County Court for county business; and by section 9 the district clerk was ex-officio clerk of the Police or County Court. By act of 13th Legislature, section 32, page 147, this County Court had the jurisdiction both to require of the sheriff as collector a new bond, and also to approve it.</p> <p>7. Same—Approving bond.—The approval of a sheriff’s bond .is a judicial act.</p> <p>S. Members of County Court.—The members of the County Court, as constituted under the Constitution of 1869, were not liable personally in a civil action, at suit of the sheriff, for having wrongfully and maliciously rejected his official bond.</p> <p>On Motion for Rehearing.</p> <p>1. Pleading.—That said justices of the peace failed to turn over the tax roll, regarded as inducement to the main charge, and as basis for damages in the action against them for refusing to approve the bond.</p> <p>2. Pleadings—Tax rolls.—There having been no a