§ 66.001.Grounds

The grounds, and reading them is the quickest way to see what the action is for.

Quo warranto is the state’s action asking by what authority a person or body exercises a public function. The name is the question: by what warrant.

A person usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or executes a franchise or an office, including an office in a corporation created under state authority.

That is the core case — someone occupying a public office they have no right to hold.

A public officer does an act or allows an act that by law causes a forfeiture of his office. Here the person held the office lawfully and lost the right to it.

An association of persons acts as a corporation without being legally incorporated.

A corporation does or omits an act that requires a surrender or causes a forfeiture of its rights and privileges as a corporation, or exercises power not granted by law.

Those two are the corporate half of the action. A corporation exists by the state’s grant, and quo warranto is how the state asks whether the grant is being honoured — the proceeding by which a charter is forfeited.

The last two grounds are historical curiosities that remain on the books: a railroad company charging an extortionate rate for transportation of freight or passengers, and a railroad company unlawfully refusing to move over its lines the cars of another railroad company.

They date from the era when railroads were the dominant corporate power and the state’s principal lever over them was the charter it had granted.

The unifying idea across all seven is authority derived from the state. An office, a franchise, a charter — each is a grant, and quo warranto is how the grant is called in.