Hidalgo Cnty. Water Improvement Dist. No. 3 v. Hidalgo Cnty. Irrigation Dist. No. 1

• Decision Date: 19 May 2023
• Docket Number: 21-0507
• Parties: Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3, Petitioner, v. Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 1, Respondent
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

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Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3, Petitioner, v. Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 1, Respondent

No. 21-0507

Supreme Court of Texas

May 19, 2023

Argued January 12, 2023

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District of Texas

OPINION

Debra H. Lehrmann Justice

In this eminent-domain proceeding brought by one political subdivision against another, the principal issue is whether governmental immunity bars such a proceeding. The court of appeals held that the condemnee entity is immune from suit and affirmed the trial court's order granting the entity's plea to the jurisdiction. Because we hold that governmental immunity does not apply in this context, we reverse.

I. Background

The facts of this case are undisputed. Petitioner Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3 (the Improvement District) and Respondent Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 1 (the Irrigation District) both provide water and irrigation services in Hidalgo County. The Irrigation District operates an open irrigation outtake canal in McAllen through which most of the drinking water supplied to the City of Edinburg flows.

The Improvement District operates an underground irrigation pipeline along the right-of-way for Bicentennial Boulevard in McAllen. The Improvement District entered into an agreement with the City of McAllen to extend the irrigation pipeline in conjunction with the City's northward extension of the boulevard. The route of the proposed pipeline extension crosses under the Irrigation District's canal.

The Improvement District offered to purchase a subsurface easement from the Irrigation District, which rejected the offer. After negotiations failed, the Improvement District filed this condemnation action. See Tex. Water Code § 49.222(a) (granting water districts condemnation authority). The trial court appointed special commissioners who set a hearing to assess the Irrigation District's damages caused by the condemnation. See Tex. Prop Code §§ 21.014-.015 (requiring the judge in a condemnation proceeding to appoint special commissioners to assess the condemnee's damages). The Irrigation District did not attend the hearing. The commissioners awarded the Irrigation District $1,900 in damages.

The Irrigation District timely objected to the commissioners' findings, see id. § 21.018(a), arguing that the Improvement District could not establish the paramount public importance of its pipeline. Under the paramount-public-importance doctrine, a condemnation authority may not condemn land already dedicated to a public use if doing so would effectively destroy its existing use unless the condemnor can show that the intended use is of "paramount public importance" and cannot be achieved by any other means. 1A Julius L. Sackman, Nichols on Eminent Domain § 2.17 (3d ed. 2023). The Irrigation District contended that the Improvement District's proposed easement would practically destroy the Irrigation District's canal and the proposed pipeline extension was not of paramount importance when compared to the existing canal.

Before the trial court ruled on the objection, the Irrigation District filed a plea to the jurisdiction. In its plea, the Irrigation District argued that it had governmental immunity from the condemnation suit and that the Legislature had not waived that immunity. The trial court agreed, granted the plea, and dismissed the suit.

The court of appeals affirmed. 627 S.W.3d 529, 540 (Tex. App.- Corpus Christi-Edinburg 2021). The court reasoned that the Improvement District's condemnation proceeding raises separation-of-powers issues by asking the judiciary to interfere with the Irrigation District's discretion regarding the disposition of its property. Id. at 537. Therefore, the court held that governmental immunity bars the suit, even though it poses no grave danger to the public fisc. Id. Having determined that governmental immunity is implicated, the court of appeals then rejected the Improvement District's contention that Section 49.222 of the Water Code waives the Irrigation District's immunity from a condemnation suit. Id. at 540.

The Improvement District petitioned for review. Before this Court, the Improvement District argues that governmental immunity does not apply in the condemnation context for two reasons. First, the Improvement District contends that the modern justifications for governmental immunity are not served by applying the doctrine to condemnation suits. Second, it asserts that separating the power to condemn, which the Improvement District undoubtedly possesses, from the power to bring an action to condemn makes little practical sense. So, rather than address condemnation disputes involving governmental-entity condemnees under an immunity-and-waiver framework, the Improvement District argues that we should do so by applying the paramount-public-importance doctrine.

Alternatively, the Improvement District argues that, even if governmental immunity does apply in the condemnation context, Section 49.222 of the Water Code clearly and unambiguously waives that immunity by empowering the Improvement District to condemn any land inside or outside its boundaries for a variety of purposes. The Improvement District argues that this statutory grant of condemnation authority is broad enough to necessarily include a waiver of a governmental-entity condemnee's immunity.

The Irrigation District responds that immunity should apply in this context to prevent parties from using the judiciary to alter government policy. The Irrigation District disputes the Improvement District's assertion that the paramount-public-importance doctrine constitutes the primary judicial mechanism for resolving condemnation disputes involving governmental-entity condemnees, arguing that the doctrine comes into play only after a court determines that the Legislature has waived the condemnee's immunity. Finally, the Irrigation District argues that the court of appeals correctly determined that Section 49.222 does not clearly and unambiguously waive the Irrigation District's immunity.

II. Discussion

Sovereign immunity generally bars lawsuits against the State absent legislative consent to be sued. State v. Lueck, 290 S.W.3d 876, 880 (Tex. 2009). Governmental immunity provides similar protection to the State's political subdivisions, including the water districts involved in this case. See Reata Constr. Co. v. City of Dallas, 197 S.W.3d 371, 374 (Tex. 2006). One component of such immunity-immunity from suit- implicates a court's subject matter jurisdiction and is thus properly raised in a plea to the jurisdiction.^[1] Sampson v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, 500 S.W.3d 380, 384 (Tex. 2016); see also Rattray v. City of Brownsville, 662 S.W.3d 860, 868 (Tex. 2023) (reiterating that, though "immunity does not equate to subject matter jurisdiction," it nevertheless "implicates" jurisdiction "such that an opinion in the face of a valid assertion of immunity may correctly be called 'advisory'" (citations omitted)).

A. Recognized Limits on Sovereign Immunity's Scope

When reviewing a dispute about whether a claim against a governmental entity is barred by immunity, our focus typically is not on whether the entity is immune in the first instance-it usually is-but whether the Legislature has chosen to waive that immunity. See Lueck, 290 S.W.3d at 880. Today we are presented with the rare antecedent question of whether immunity applies in a certain type of proceeding, specifically, a condemnation proceeding.

Because sovereign immunity, and by extension governmental immunity, is first and foremost a common-law doctrine, we have recognized that the judiciary is responsible for defining the doctrine's boundaries and determining whether it applies in the first instance. City of Conroe v. San Jacinto River Auth, 602 S.W.3d 444, 457 (Tex 2020) That obligation-to evaluate whether the doctrine should be modified or abrogated under particular circumstances-remains squarely within the judiciary's province, while the Legislature determines the circumstances under which immunity is waived City of Dallas v Albert, 354 S.W.3d 368, 373 (Tex 2011) ("[Governmental immunity's] boundaries are established by the judiciary, but we have consistently held that waivers of it are the prerogative of the Legislature"); see also Tex Dep't of Crim Just v Miller, 51 S.W.3d 583, 592 (Tex 2001) (Hecht, J, concurring) ("The common-law rule of immunity in Texas was the judiciary's to recognize, and it is ours to disregard." (internal citations omitted)).

In determining whether sovereign immunity applies in the first instance, we consider the nature and purposes of the doctrine as guides. City of Conroe, 602 S.W.3d at 458. As we have reiterated on numerous occasions, the justifications for this longstanding common-law rule have evolved over the centuries. Our modern jurisprudence justifies the doctrine as a means of (1) protecting the public fisc by shielding tax resources from being diverted to pay litigation costs and money judgments and (2) preserving the separation of powers and the Legislature's prerogative to apportion tax dollars to their intended purposes. See, e.g., Brown & Gay Eng'g, Inc. v. Olivares, 461 S.W.3d 117, 121 (Tex. 2015).

With those purposes in mind, this Court has recognized limits on the doctrine's reach. For example, in Reata, we reiterated that "when an affirmative claim for relief is filed by a governmental entity, . . . immunity from suit no longer completely exists" for that entity. 197 S.W.3d at 376. Specifically, when a governmental entity files suit or intervenes and seeks monetary relief, it is no longer immune from suit for "claims against it which are germane to connected with and...