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340 F.2d 590

Docket No. 21827.

Munoz v. Amador

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided Jan. 15, 1965.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1965-01-15

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently November 1972

5 federal appellate ·

2 counsel of record

Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))

Relies on Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization · United States v. Saylor · United States v. Saylor

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1965-01-15

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Gerald Weatherly, Laredo, Tex., for appellants.

¶2Luther E. Jones, Jr., Corpus Christie Tex., for appellees.

¶3Before MARIS,* RIVES and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

¶5PER CURIAM.

¶6This suit was brought by some 15-named plaintiffs suing as a class of voter-citizens of Starr County, Texas, F.R.Civ. P. 23(a)(1) (3) against some 15 or 20 named defendants representing, in turn, a class of defendants numbering approximately 800 each of whom was alleged to have been issued a 1964 Texas poll tax receipt without proper payment or application. Jurisdiction was based on the Civil Rights Statute, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1983, 1985, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1343, on the theory, alleged in conclusory terms, that this action resulting from a conspiracy between one or more of such defendants- and the County Tax Collector, who strangely enough was not named or sued as a defendant, diluted the vote of the-complainant-citizen-voters and their class. Cf. United States v. Saylor, 1944, 322 U.S. 385, 64 S.Ct. 1101, 88 L.Ed. 1341; Hague v. C. I. O., 1939, 307 U.S. 496, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423.

¶7The case was, however, presented to the District Court and again to-us in briefs and until the tag end of the-oral argument, entirely on the basis of a suit for declaratory relief, 28 U.S.C.A. §§' 2201, 2202. The relief sought was a declaration that the defendant-voters were not entitled to vote in the election to be held November 3, 1964. Of course-that date is now history, as is the election and the selection of the certified winners, national, state and local. The-*591case as brought, expressly submitted to the District Court, and resubmitted to us in the same context, is therefore moot as to that election. Nothing we, or the District Court, could do, or even want to do, could ever recall the events of that date. And save the possible election contests maintainable solely in the Texas State Courts, the same is true as to these voter-plaintiffs or voter-defendants. Nor is there any vestige of an Article III declaratory case or controversy left, for under Texas law poll taxes issued on or before February 1, 1964 (as these were) lose all vitality for voting on January 31, 1965. Texas Election Code, arts. 5.-01, 5.02, 5.09-5.22, V.A.T.S. (Supp. 1964). Neither this record, nor any information furnished to the Court indicates that within this brief period of time will any election, national, state, county, or municipal, be held within Starr County.

¶8Dismissed as moot.

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