Desert NDT, LLC v. Ector Cnty. Appraisal Dist.
| Decision Date | 13 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | 11-21-00102-CV |
| Citation | 654 S.W.3d 302 |
| Parties | DESERT NDT, LLC, Appellant v. ECTOR COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Adrian Ochoa, Juan F. Vasquez, Jr., David N. Calvillo, David M. Medina, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry, P.C., Houston, for Appellant.
Stewart McKeehan, Odessa, for Appellee.
Panel consists of: Bailey, C.J., Trotter, J., and Williams, J.
Appellant, Desert NDT, LLC, appeals the trial court's order granting Ector County Appraisal District's (ECAD) plea to the jurisdiction. Appellant filed suit in district court appealing an Order Determining Protest or Notice of Dismissal issued by the Ector County Appraisal Review Board (ARB). See TEX. TAX CODE ANN. § 42.01 (West Supp. 2021). In response, ECAD filed a plea to the jurisdiction on the grounds that Appellant failed to (1) timely pay a determinable portion of the taxes due ECAD by the delinquency date as required by Section 42.08 and (2) appear at the hearing on its protest before the ARB. See id. § 42.08(b) (West 2015), § 41.45. Although at the hearing on the plea, the trial court found that Appellant successfully rebutted the presumption of the delivery of the ARB protest-hearing notice, see id. § 1.07(c), it later granted ECAD's plea. We affirm.
Appellant owns miscellaneous equipment and leases vehicles for use in its business. For the 2017 tax year, Appellant identified the value of its property located in Ector County at $356,371.92; ECAD appraised the value of the same property at $2,258,497. As a result of this discrepancy, Appellant filed a notice of protest in April 2017 alleging that ECAD's appraisal erroneously included personal property that was not located within Ector County.
ECAD scheduled a protest hearing before the ARB on July 10, 2017. However, Appellant did not receive notice of the ARB hearing and thus failed to appear. The ARB then dismissed Appellant's protest and placed the property on the tax roll at the appraised value of $2,258,497 for the 2017 tax year. ECAD thereafter mailed tax bill to Appellant in December 2017. Appellant later received a second tax bill notice. The tax bills sent to Appellant identified the payment delinquency date as April 1, 2018. Aside from filing the notice of protest, Appellant took no further actions regarding its 2017 taxes until April 2019 when it submitted a partial payment of $6,440.18 to ECAD.
Concurrently with the assessment of the 2017 taxes, Appellant and ECAD were engaged in separate appeals concerning Appellant's assessed property values for the 2015 and 2016 tax years. The same dispute existed in the 2015 and 2016 tax year appeals: ECAD included property in its assessment whose situs was in a different appraisal district. Appellant and ECAD executed a mediated settlement agreement in November 2018 regarding the 2015 and 2016 tax year disputes, and the trial court signed an Agreed Final Judgment for each of these years on February 6, 2019.1
On February 19, 2021, Appellant filed the instant lawsuit appealing the ARB's dismissal of Appellant's 2017 tax protest. ECAD responded with a plea to the jurisdiction, alleging that the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to consider Appellant's claims because Appellant had failed to exhaust the necessary administrative remedies under the Tax Code. After a hearing, the trial court granted ECAD's plea.
In three issues, Appellant complains that the trial court erred when it granted ECAD's plea to the jurisdiction because (1) ECAD failed to deliver notice of the protest hearing to Appellant in violation of Appellant's right to due process, see TAX §§ 1.07, 41.46; (2) the trial court failed to extend its judgment concerning the 2016 taxes and enforce the same judgment as to the 2017 tax issues; and (3) Appellant met the payment requirements under Section 42.08 and thus exhausted the necessary administrative remedies.
Before a court may dispose of a case, it is essential that the court possess subject-matter jurisdiction. Bland Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Blue , 34 S.W.3d 547, 553–54 (Tex. 2000). A plea to the jurisdiction is a dilatory plea and a proper method by which to challenge a trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction. Id. at 554. Whether a trial court has subject-matter jurisdiction over a case is a question of law that we review de novo. Harris Cnty. v. Annab , 547 S.W.3d 609, 612 (Tex. 2018) (citing Tex. Dep't of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda , 133 S.W.3d 217, 226 (Tex. 2004) ); Ector Cnty. v. Breedlove , 168 S.W.3d 864, 865 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2004, no pet.).
The purpose of a plea to the jurisdiction is to defeat a pleaded cause of action without reaching the merits. Blue , 34 S.W.3d at 554. A plea to the jurisdiction may challenge the pleadings, the existence of jurisdictional facts, or both. Alamo Heights Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Clark , 544 S.W.3d 755, 770 (Tex. 2018) ; City of Merkel v. Copeland , 561 S.W.3d 720, 723 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2018, pet. denied). When the plea challenges the existence of jurisdictional facts, as in the case before us, we must move beyond the pleadings and consider evidence when necessary to resolve the jurisdictional issues, even if the evidence implicates both subject-matter jurisdiction and the merits of a claim. Clark , 544 S.W.3d at 770–71 (citing Blue , 34 S.W.3d at 555 ). In such cases, the standard of review mirrors that of a traditional summary judgment. Id. at 771 (citing Miranda , 133 S.W.3d at 225–26 ).
Thus, if the plaintiff's factual allegations are challenged with supporting evidence necessary to the consideration of the plea to the jurisdiction, the plaintiff must raise at least a genuine issue of material fact to overcome the challenge to the trial court's subject-matter jurisdiction and avoid dismissal. Id. (citing Miranda , 133 S.W.3d at 221 ). When we determine whether a material fact issue exists, "we must take as true all evidence favorable to the plaintiff, indulging every reasonable inference and resolving any doubts in the plaintiff's favor." Id. We cannot, however, disregard evidence that is necessary to show context; nor can we disregard evidence and inferences unfavorable to the plaintiff if reasonable jurors could not. Id. (citing City of Keller v. Wilson , 168 S.W.3d 802, 811–12, 822–23, 827 (Tex. 2005) ).
The procedures provided in the Texas Tax Code for "adjudication of the grounds of protest ... are exclusive." TAX § 42.09(a); see also Cameron Appraisal Dist. v. Rourk , 194 S.W.3d 501, 502 (Tex. 2006) (per curiam) (). "Compliance with the tax code is a jurisdictional prerequisite to pursuing judicial review, and failure to strictly comply with the time lines set forth in the code is a jurisdictional defect precluding review." Tarrant Appraisal Dist. v. Gateway Ctr. Assocs., Ltd. , 34 S.W.3d 712, 714 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2000, no pet.) ; see also Webb Cnty. Appraisal Dist. v. New Laredo Hotel, Inc. , 792 S.W.2d 952, 954 (Tex. 1990) ().
Appellant, in its first issue, contends that ECAD's failure to deliver notice of the protest hearing violated Appellant's right to due process. Within this, Appellant attempts to raise an additional argument that ECAD's jurisdiction was never invoked because ECAD failed to properly deliver the notice of appraised value for the 2017 tax year to Appellant. While not a separate and distinct issue that Appellant has raised on appeal, this jurisdictional argument requires separate consideration, because a determination that ECAD never acquired jurisdiction to consider Appellant's complaints would in turn necessarily confer subject-matter jurisdiction on the trial court to consider the merits of Appellant's underlying lawsuit. See New v. Dallas Appraisal Rev. Bd. , 734 S.W.2d 712, 716 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1987, writ denied) (). In that regard, Appellant asserts that ECAD's jurisdiction failed to attach because ECAD incorrectly addressed the notice of appraised value to "DESERT NDT DBA DESERT NDT" instead of to "DESERT NDT, LLC." We disagree.
In support of this argument, Appellant relies on New v. Dallas Appraisal Review Board for the assertion that because the notice requirements under the Tax Code are strictly enforced, the discrepancy in its name as identified in the notice was so detrimental that ECAD's jurisdiction could never have attached in the first place. 734 S.W.2d at 714–716. However, the court's decision in New is not applicable because the taxpayer in New never received notice of the appraised value. Id. at 715. Here, Appellant did receive notice of the appraised value for the 2017 tax year despite the difference in its name that was identified in the notice.
Furthermore, the legislature did not intend for such slight mistakes to affect the validity of the appraisal district's jurisdiction under the Tax Code. See Denton Central Appraisal Dist. v. CIT Leasing Corp. , 115 S.W.3d 261, 265 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2003, pet. denied) (). As such, neither the validity of the appraisal nor the appraisal district's imposition of taxes based on the appraisal is affected if a taxpayer does not receive the required notice of the appraised value. Id. at 265. Section 25.19 requires the chief appraiser to deliver written notice to a property owner of the appraised value of the property if the appraised value of the property is greater than the value rendered by the...
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