Bexar County v. Stewart

FLY, C. J. This is an appeal from an interlocutory order granting a temporary injunction against Bexar county, D. F. Davis, county attorney, W. A. Wurzbach, county judge, and E. H. Talbert, justice of the peace of precinct No. 6, Bexar county. It is alleged in the petition of appellee that the county had filed an action of forcible entry and detainer as to a certain parcel of land and that such suit was now pending before the justice of the peace of precinct No. 6. Appellee prayed that the county attorney and justice of the peace “be restrained from holding a proceeding of forcible entry and detainer in the justice’s court and in any other manner disturbing plaintiff in his peaceful possession.” The action of forcible entry and detainer is statutory and fully defined. It gives a full hearing before the justice of the peace and provides for appeals to higher courts. An ample remedy at law is provided, and appel-lee failed to show any legal right of which he was being deprived. The doctrine as to interference with a legal action through an equitable -writ is forcibly stated by Pomeroy, §§ 1361 and 2059, Equity Jurisprudence, as follows: “The principle is well established, and is universal in its application, that when a cause belongs to the jurisdiction of the law courts, equity will never interfere to restrain the prosecution of the action, nor to stay proceedings on the judgment or execution, upon any mere legal grounds, although it may be demonstrated that the complainant in equity (generally the defendant at law) had a valid legal defense, which was not made available either through the error of the court in determining the law or the facts, or the omissions of himself or his counsel in presenting it, or in obtaining the evidence by which it could have been supported.” A bill in equity must state in clear and unmistakable terms the grounds for equitable relief. The petition shows a lawful action entered against appellee and the law provides for a defense to it. The justice of the peace has jurisdiction of the cause, and if dissatisfied with his judgment appellee can-appeal to another court. A recent case involving similar facts was decided by this court'through an opinion by Associate Justice Smith, and had it been followed the writ of injunction would not' have issued to interfere with the orderly administration of law in a court of competent jurisdiction. Lipscomb v. Butler (Tex. Civ. App.) 35 S.W.(2d) 742. No question of title was involved in the trial of the action of forcible entry and de-tainer, except as it might be inextricably mixed with the right of possession. The petition of appellee showed no right or title to the land, and no effort to violate any law was alleged. The allegations, on the other hand, tended to show that appellee was in unlawful possession of the land. The writ of injunction would become a destructive force if it be used to deprive courts of their legal authority and jurisdiction and lose its distinctive trait of a remedial writ, issued only to meet emergencies and grant relief from wrong and oppression. When the law provides machinery for the enforcing of rights and preventing wrongs and such machinery is being operated without wrong or oppression in the orderly manner prescribed, a court of equity will not interfere. If a case of forcible entry and detainer can be rendered nugatory and ineffective, without any wrong being alleged or proved, any case in any court can be rendered useless and ineffective by the loose unwarranted issuance of writs of injunction. Equity has grown to its present splendid perfection out of the soil of human necessity, and to hold its honorable position must be used as a means of preservation and not as an impediment to the enforcement of a righteous law. The judgment will be reversed, the injunction dissolved and set aside, and the cause dismissed.