Harris v. Cantu

Decision Date26 January 2015
Docket NumberCivil Action No. H–14–1312.
Citation81 F.Supp.3d 566
PartiesKeith HARRIS, Plaintiff, v. Eliseo “Al” CANTU, Jr. in his official capacity as chairman of the Texas Veterans Commission, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

Rebecca Lynn Phillips, John Denis Sheppard, Schiffer Odom Hicks & Johnson, PLLC, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff.

Shelley Dahlberg, Atty. Gen. Office, Austin, TX, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

EWING WERLEIN, JR., District Judge.

Pending are Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (Document No. 24) and Plaintiff's Replacement Motion for Summary Judgment (Document No. 28). After carefully considering the motions, responses, replies, and applicable law, the Court concludes for the following reasons that Plaintiff's motion should be granted.

I. Background

The material facts in this case are undisputed. Plaintiff Keith Harris (Plaintiff) in 1996 enlisted in the United States Army at the age of 18 in his home state of Georgia.1 Plaintiff served four years in. the Army and was honorably discharged, after which he returned to Georgia, obtained a job, married, and started a family.2 Plaintiff moved to Houston, Texas in November 2004, and has been a Texas resident for the past ten years.3

Plaintiff began taking college courses when he was in the Army, and after leaving the Army he used his federal GI Bill educational benefits to continue his college education.4 Plaintiff received a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Houston–Downtown in December 2011.5 Plaintiff enrolled as a law student at the University of Houston Law Center in August 2012,6 and began his third year of law school in the fall of 2014.7 Having exhausted his GI Bill benefits, Plaintiff is paying for his tuition and fees on his own.8

The Texas Hazlewood Act (“the Act”) exempts Texas veterans from paying tuition, dues, and certain fees at Texas public universities if they have exhausted their federal educational benefits, but only if they were Texas residents at the time of their enlistment. Tex. Educ.Code § 54.341(a) (veteran shall be exempt from tuition, dues, and certain fees “provided the person seeking the exemption currently resides in this state and entered the service at a location in this state, declared this state as the person's home of record in the manner provided by the applicable military or other service, or would have been determined to be a resident of this state for purposes of Subchapter B at the time the person entered the service.”). Plaintiff meets all the requirements of the Act except for the requirement that he must have entered the military while a resident of Texas.9

Plaintiff filed suit against numerous state employees in their official capacities, seeking to enjoin as unconstitutional his exclusion from the Act's benefits based on his enlistment when he was a Georgia resident.10 The remaining Defendants include: Texas Veterans Commission Chairman Eliseo “Al” Cantu, Jr, Vice Chair James Scott, Secretary Richard McLeon, IV, Member Jake Ellzey, and Member Daniel Moran (collectively the “Texas Veterans Commissioners”); Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (“THECB”) Chairman Harold Hahn, Vice Chair Robert Jenkins, Jr., Member Sada Cumber, Member Christopher Huckabee, Member Jacob Monty, Member Janelle Shepard, Member John Steen, Jr., Member David Teuscher, and Member Raymond Paredes (collectively the “THECB Members”); and University of Houston Board of Regents Chairman Jarvis Hollingsworth, Vice Chairman Tilman Fertitta, Secretary Welcome Wilson, Jr., Member Beth Madison, Member Spencer Armour, III, Member Roger Welder, Member Durga Agrawal, Member Paula Mendoza, and Member Peter Taaffe (collectively the Board of Regents).11

Plaintiff alleges that the Act's “fixed-point residency requirement”—both facially and as applied to him—violates his rights to equal protection and to travel under the United States Constitution.12 Plaintiff also asserts violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.13 The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.14

II. Objections

Defendants raise five objections to statements and evidence in Plaintiff's motion.15

Defendants' hearsay objection to Senator Van de Putte's statement cited in footnote 4 of Plaintiff's motion is OVERRULED because Plaintiff does not offer the statement in evidence, nor is it offered for the truth of the matter asserted; instead, Plaintiff appears to include it as mere rhetorical flourish.

Defendants' objection that the Act does not require exhaustion of federal benefits is OVERRULED because the Act's exemption does not apply to the extent that federal benefits are available to pay the covered tuition and fees.16

Defendants' objection that Plaintiff's attachment to his motion of Defendants' answers to interrogatories does not limit Defendants' proof is SUSTAINED. Defendants were not precluded from offering additional justifications for the Act's fixed-point residency requirement beyond those stated in their Supplemental Answer to Interrogatory at Document No. 28–10.

Defendants' relevancy objection to the University of Houston's mission statement and published information about its graduates is SUSTAINED.

Defendants' objection to Plaintiff's statement that funds will exist for a constitutionally-mandated expansion of the Act is OVERRULED. This is mere argument. Both parties argue their separate views on the consequences of a change in the law in terms of future costs, but their argument does not bear upon the constitutionality of the challenged proviso.

III. Legal Standard

Rule 56(a) provides that [t]he court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Once the movant carries this burden, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to show that summary judgment should not be granted. Morris v. Covan World Wide Moving, Inc., 144 F.3d 377, 380 (5th Cir.1998). Where both parties move for summary judgment, the court independently reviews each motion with its supporting proof. First Colony Life Ins. Co. v. Sanford, 555 F.3d 177, 180 (5th Cir.2009). Summary judgment is appropriate where, as in this case, the material facts are undisputed and the only issue before the court is a pure question of law. Kornman & Associates, Inc. v. United States, 527 F.3d 443, 450 (5th Cir.2008).

“The general rule is that legislation is presumed to be valid and will be sustained if the classification drawn by the statute is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.” City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3254, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985) (collecting cases); see also Noatex Corp. v. King Const. of Houston, L.L.C., 732 F.3d 479, 484 (5th Cir.2013) ([S]tatutes should be construed, whenever possible so as to uphold their constitutionality.”) (quoting United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 1298, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971) ).

IV. Analysis
A. Constitutionality of the Act

The Hazlewood Act provides in relevant part:

(a) The governing board of each institution of higher education shall exempt the following persons from the payment of tuition, dues, fees, and other required charges, including fees for correspondence courses but excluding general deposit fees, student services fees, and any fees or charges for lodging, board, or clothing, provided the person seeking the exemption currently resides in this state and entered the service at a location in this state, declared this state as the person's home of record in the manner provided by the applicable military or other service, or would have been determined to be a resident of this state for purposes of Subchapter B at the time the person entered the service:
...
(4) all persons who were honorably discharged from the armed forces of the United States after serving on active military duty, excluding training, for more than 180 days and who served a portion of their active duty during:
...
(E) the Persian Gulf War which began on August 2, 1990, and ends on the date thereafter prescribed by Presidential proclamation or September 1, 1997, whichever occurs first[.]17

Tex. Educ.Code § 54.341(a) (emphasis added).18 Plaintiff argues that the Act's fixed-point residency requirement is subject to heightened scrutiny, but that it fails even under rational basis review because Defendants can point to no legitimate government interest rationally related to the exclusion of Texas resident veterans from Hazlewood Act benefits solely on the basis of their state residency status at the time of their enlistment.19 Defendants argue that rational basis review applies, and advance several reasons as justifications for the fixed-point residency requirement.20

Both the standard of review and the outcome of this case are governed by a trio of Supreme Court opinions involving challenges to fixed-point residency requirements under the Equal Protection Clause and the constitutional right to travel or migrate.

In Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55, 102 S.Ct. 2309, 72 L.Ed.2d 672 (1982), the Court struck down an Alaska statute that distributed dividends from the state's oil revenue to Alaska residents in amounts dependant on the duration of their residency, with residents receiving one dividend unit for every year of residence after 1959. The Court explained that [w]hen a state distributes benefits unequally, the distinctions it makes are subject to scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” and declined to analyze the case under the right to travel, noting that “the nature and source of that right have remained obscure” and that [i]n reality, right to travel analysis refers to little more than a particular application of equal protection analysis.” Id. at 2313 & n. 6.21 The Court declined to decide whether heightened scrutiny applied because it found that the statutory scheme...

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