Carroll Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Nw. Indep. Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 01 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 02-18-00264-CV,02-18-00264-CV
• Citation: Carroll Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Nw. Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 02-18-00264-CV (Tex. App. Jul 01, 2021)
• Parties: CARROLL INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant v. NORTHWEST INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, JOSH WRIGHT, MARK SCHLUTER, STEVE SPROWLS, JUDY COPP, ANN DAVIS-SIMPSON, LILLIAN RAUCH, AND RYDER WARREN, IN THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITIES ONLY, Appellees
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

CARROLL INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant v. NORTHWEST INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, JOSH WRIGHT, MARKSCHLUTER, STEVE SPROWLS, JUDY COPP, ANN DAVIS-SIMPSON, LILLIANRAUCH, AND RYDER WARREN, IN THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITIES ONLY, Appellees

No. 02-18-00264-CV

Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth

July 1, 2021

On Appeal from the 141st District Court Tarrant County, Texas

Trial CourtNo. 141-210251-05

Before Sudderth, C.J.; and Bassel, J.¹

Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice SudderthMEMORANDUM OPINION

I.Introduction

This is the fourth appeal² in a boundary dispute between two school districts—AppellantCarroll Independent School District and Appellee Northwest Independent School District.³The prior three appeals have dealt with three pleas to the jurisdiction.When the case finally went to trial 13 years after it was filed, the testimony focused on what the term "the County Line" meant in the property description in the 1949 commissioners court orders that created Northwest and how that term's use informed the meaning of the 1959 commissioners court order creating Carroll.Carroll argued that the term referred to the line known as the Gilley line, which was judicially determined decades after the commissioners courts' orders issued to be the actual boundary between Denton and Tarrant counties in a lawsuit between the counties to which the school districts were not parties.SeeTarrant Cty. v. Denton Cty., 87 S.W.3d 159, 175(Tex. App.—Fort Worth2002, pet. denied)(op. on reh'g),disapproved on other grounds byMartin v. Amerman, 133 S.W.3d 262, 268(Tex.2004).Northwest contended that the term meant the county line that had been surveyed by George White from December 1852 to January 1853 and that was later retraced by W.C. Wilson in 2000, i.e., the county line as it was understood to be located in 1949, regardless of whether it had been correctly surveyed at that time.⁴After holding a three-day bench trial, the trial court signed a judgment denying Carroll's request for a declaratory judgment that the Gilley line is the boundary between the two school districts, granting Northwest's request for a declaratory judgment that the school districts' common boundary line is the line retraced by surveyor Wilson (known as the White line) and therefore that the disputed territory between the White and Gilley lines is in Northwest, and awarding Northwest attorneys' fees.

In six issues, Carroll argues that (1) the school districts' common boundary line is the Gilley line, the actual county line defined by the legislature and finally located in the Tarrant County suit; (2)the trial court erred by "reestablishing" the White line as the county line contrary to the Tarrant County judgment; (3) the Tarrant County suit ascertained the location of both the county line and the school districts' common boundary; (4) contrary to some of the trial court's findings and conclusions, the trial court had jurisdiction to decide Carroll's claim about the location of the schooldistricts' common boundary; (5) alternatively, Carroll did not acquiesce in a taxing line mapped by the local appraisal district as the school districts' common boundary; and (6) Northwest cannot recover a declaratory judgment or attorneys' fees, and, alternatively, the award of attorneys' fees is excessive.Northwest requests in its brief that we modify the judgment to (a) replace the current reference to a Bates-stamped exhibit in the voluminous record where the White line's coordinates can be found with a specific description of those coordinates and (b) correct a typographical error in the attorneys' fees paragraph.

We decide Carroll's issues as follows:

(1) Our review of the record demonstrates that the context of the 1949 orders makes clear that "the County Line" reference therein is a metes-and-bounds descriptor that refers to a line on the ground that had been surveyed by White in 1852-1853 and that was the only county line that was in existence when the orders were drafted, regardless of whether it was then an accurate location of the counties' actual boundary; thus, "the County Line" reference is not to a line that was finally accurately surveyed over 50 years later in the Tarrant County suit that established the counties' boundaries pursuant to an Interlocal Cooperation Agreement that did not involve the school districts.

(2 & 3)Because the Tarrant County decision did not establish the school districts' common boundary, the trial court in this case did not "reestablish" thecounty line contrary to that decision; instead, the trial court merely interpreted the term "the County Line" as used in the 1949 orders.

(4)We previously determined in Carroll III that the trial court had jurisdiction to determine Carroll's claim about the location of the school districts' common boundary, so the trial court erred to the extent that it made findings of fact and conclusions of law that ignored the law of the case.But such errors were not reasonably calculated to cause nor did they cause the rendition of an improper judgment.

(5) Because we hold that "the County Line" descriptor in the 1949 orders refers to the White line, we need not address Carroll's alternative arguments related to the taxing line.

(6) The school districts brought competing claims to have the 1949 orders interpreted, and we have previously held that these claims fall under the Declaratory Judgments Act (DJA).Carroll is therefore not immune from Northwest's counterclaim seeking a declaratory judgment on the interpretation of "the County Line" descriptor in the 1949 orders.Because Northwest prevailed on its declaratory-judgment claim and attorneys' fees are recoverable under the DJA, the trial court properly awarded Northwest its attorneys' fees.Carroll waived its excessiveness argument, which is actually a complaint that the fees were not segregated.

With regard to Northwest's requested modifications to the judgment, we modify the judgment (a) to specifically state that the referenced Bates-stamped pages are attached and to attach those pages to it via this opinion and (b) to correct the typographical error.We therefore affirm the judgment as modified.

II.Background

A.Brief Summary of the Boundary Dispute⁵

As we stated in the most recent opinion in this series of appeals, "The factual and procedural history of this case is byzantine, protracted, and laborious,"Carroll III, 502 S.W.3d at 920, but the boundary dispute can be summarized as follows: "[B]oth school districts are claiming an area that lies between the White line on the south and the Tarrant-Denton County line [the Gilley line] on the north,"Carroll I, 245 S.W.3d at 623."This disputed area . . . encompasses 842 acres and, apparently, [fewer] than 200 students.Northwest currently levies and collects taxes in the disputed area."Carroll III, 502 S.W.3d at 920.As of 2017, the disputed area contributed approximately $3.8 million to Northwest's budget.

B.Carroll I, II, and III

In Carroll III, we summarized the prior proceedings as follows:

Carroll filed suit against Northwest in 2005 over the location of the districts' boundary line.Northwest filed a plea to the jurisdiction, the trial court granted the plea, and Carroll filed an interlocutory appeal.Wereversed the trial court's order and remanded [the case] to the trial court"for further proceedings" after concluding that the trial court had jurisdiction over Carroll's claims for trespass to try title and for a declaratory judgment regarding its rights and duties in the disputed area.[Carroll I, 245 S.W.3d at 625-26.]We specifically stated that Carroll was "not attempting by its suit to change the existing boundary line between the two school districts" or seeking "to detach and annex the [d]isputed [a]rea from Northwest"; rather, Carroll was simply seeking "a judicial determination regarding in which of these districts the [d]isputed [a]rea is, and always has been, located."Id. at 624-25.

On remand,⁶ Carroll amended its petition to allege that although Carroll "contends that the common boundary between the two school districts is located on the county line," Northwest "has disputed this contention in public filings and otherwise."Northwest filed a second plea to the jurisdiction, which the trial court denied.Northwest filed an interlocutory appeal from the trial court's denial.In three opinions on en banc reconsideration, we affirmed the trial court's denial and, in a corrected judgment, remanded the case to the trial court for [a] trial "regarding the meaning of the orders and judgments creating the actual boundary location between the two school districts."[Carroll II, 441 S.W.3d at 694-96.]

Id. at 920-21.

After the Carroll II remand, Carroll again amended its petition, adding Northwest's trustees and superintendent as defendants for the purpose of raising an ultra vires claim.⁷Id. at 922.In its ultra vires claim, Carroll alleged that the trusteesand superintendent, in their official capacities, had committed "illegal, unauthorized[,] and ultra vires" actions by exercising authority over the disputed area.⁸Id.With regard to Carroll's ultra vires claim, our previous opinion further stated that

Northwest filed a combined third plea to the jurisdiction, special exceptions, and a motion for summary judgment.In its special exceptions and motion for summary judgment, Northwest argued that Carroll's ultra vires claim impermissibly exceeded the scope of this court's remand.In its plea to the jurisdiction, Northwest contended that Carroll's ultra vires claim was not ripe because it depended on uncertain, contingent, or hypothetical future events—a judicial determination that the disputed area is located within Carroll's boundaries—which "likely" would never occur based on this court's limited remand in Carroll II.Northwest also moved to quash some of Carroll's requested discovery, specifically Carroll's request for demographic data to determine the number

...