The Law Of Corporations In Texas: As Contained In The Latest Statutes And Session Laws, And As Interpreted By The Highest Courts...
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The Law Of Corporations In Texas: As Contained In The Latest Statutes And Session Laws, And As Interpreted By The Highest Courts
Robert Lynn Batts, Texas
Gilbert book company, 1902
Corporation law
Robert Batts was born on November 1, 1864, in Bastrop, Texas, the son of Andrew Jackson and Julia Priscilla (Rice) Batts. His father's people were descended from an old English family that is known to have held an estate near Leeds as early as 1540. One of his ancestors, Robert Batts, in the first part of the seventeenth century was vice-master of University College, Oxford. The son of this Robert emigrated to America prior to 1650, and, settling in Virginia on the James River, became the founder of the family in America. In 1857 Andrew Jackson Batts, then twenty-six years of age, moved to Texas and settled at Bastrop, where in 1860 he married Julia Priscilla Rice. The Rice family, also early settlers of Virginia, were of Scotch-Irish descent.
Education
Robert received his early education in a private school and later in Excelsior College, a private institution said to have been of collegiate rank and of good quality. In 1884 he entered the University of Texas, then beginning its second year. He received diplomas (under the system then in vogue) and certificates of "distinguished proficiency" in the schools of English and history. In 1886 he received the degree of bachelor of laws. As a student he distinguished himself in debating, and was editor-in-chief of the first student publication, a magazine called The Texas University.
Career
After leaving college Robert practised law in Bastrop and represented his district in the legislature. In 1891 he became assistant attorney-general under Charles A. Culberson, a position that he held only long enough to prepare and try a suit against one of the most powerful railroads in Texas, as a result of which he recovered for the public school fund some 920, 000 acres of land. In 1893 he resigned to become professor of law in the University of Texas. This position he held with distinction until 1900, when he resigned to go into the practice of law in Austin as a member of the firm of Gregory & Batts (later Gregory, Batts & Brooks), the senior member being Thomas Watt Gregory, afterwards attorney-general of the United States. The firm handled much important litigation, the most important being as the state's attorneys in a suit to oust the Waters Pierce Oil Company from doing business in Texas, and for penalties for violating the state's anti-trust laws. The suit resulted in a sweeping victory for the state and the collection of more than a million and a half dollars in fines and penalties.
In 1914 Batts was employed as special assistant United States attorney to prosecute criminal charges against the directors of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, who were represented by seventeen of the leading attorneys of New York. After many weeks in court the case resulted in a mistrial. In 1917 President Wilson appointed him United States circuit judge for the Fifth Circuit, comprising the six states bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. In this connection his knowledge of French and Spanish civil law was of great value when cases arose in the Rio Grande Valley involving land titles. He held office until 1919, when he resigned to become general counsel for the Gulf Oil Companies, with headquarters in Pittsburgh. Intensely loyal to Texas, he did not enjoy life in Pittsburgh and after four years resigned to resume the practice of law in Austin.
Batts’ last public service was as a member of the board of regents of the University of Texas from 1927 to 1933, during the last three years as chairman of the board. In this capacity he had a conspicuous part in the expansion of the physical plant of the university made possible by the discovery of oil on its extensive landed endowment. He was the author of Batts' Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas, 1895 (2 vols. , 1897 - 99); a second edition of C. N. Buckler's A Civil Digest of the Texas Reports (2 vols. , 1900), and The Law of Corporations in Texas (1902, 1913). He died of a heart attack at his home in Austin when he was in his seventy-first year.
Achievements
Robert Batts served as assistant state attorney general of Texas (1891-1893); judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (1917-1919).
Batts wrote: Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas, 1895 (2 vols. , 1897 - 99); a second edition of C. N. Buckler's A Civil Digest of the Texas Reports (2 vols. , 1900), and The Law of Corporations in Texas (1902, 1913).
