Oncor Elec. Delivery Co. NTU LL v. Mills Cent. Appraisal Dist.

• Docket Number: 03-21-00027-CV
• Decision Date: 06 December 2022
• Citation: 660 S.W.3d 288
• Parties: ONCOR ELECTRIC DELIVERY COMPANY NTU LLC, Appellant v. MILLS CENTRAL APPRAISAL DISTRICT and Mills County Appraisal Review Board, Appellees
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

660 S.W.3d 288

ONCOR ELECTRIC DELIVERY COMPANY NTU LLC, Appellant

v.MILLS CENTRAL APPRAISAL DISTRICT and Mills County Appraisal Review Board, Appellees

NO. 03-21-00027-CV

Court of Appeals of Texas, Austin.

Filed: December 6, 2022

David H. Gilliland, Marnie A. McCormick, Austin, for Appellant.

Julia Armstrong, Roy L. Armstrong, for Appellee Mills County Appraisal Review Board.

Kirk Swinney, Marjorie Bachman, James R. Evans Jr., Leander, Erin Gaines, Ryan L. James, Leander, for Appellee Mills Central Appraisal District.

Before Justices Baker, Smith, and Jones^*

OPINION

J. Woodfin Jones, Justice

Oncor Electric Delivery Company NTU LLC (Oncor) sued the Mills Central Appraisal District (Appraisal District) and the Mills County Appraisal Review Board (Review Board) challenging a decision of the Review Board that had dismissed for lack of jurisdiction Oncor's motions to correct an alleged error in the Mills County appraisal roll for 2019. The Mills County District Court granted the Appraisal District's plea to the jurisdiction. Oncor perfected this appeal. We will reverse the trial court's dismissal order and remand the case to that court for further proceedings.

Factual and Procedural Background

Until May 2019, Sharyland Distribution & Transmission Services, L.L.C. (Sharyland) provided electricity transmission delivery service in the north-central, western, and panhandle regions of Texas. Privately owned electric transmission lines are subject to ad valorem property taxation in Texas. See Tex. Tax Code § 11.01. Sharyland owned transmission lines in 13 Texas counties, including Mills County. In mid-2019 Sharyland filed protests under Texas Tax Code Section 41.41 challenging the Appraisal District's 2019 valuation of Sharyland's personal property in Mills County (as well as Sharyland's other 12 counties). The stated bases of the protests, which related to the valuation of Sharyland's transmission lines, were: (1) "[i]ncorrect appraised (market) value" and (2) "[v]alue is unequal compared with other properties." Sharyland and the Appraisal District later entered into a statutory agreement in which Sharyland withdrew its protests and agreed to an appraised market value of its property in Mills County. See id. § 1.111(e).

In May 2019, Oncor acquired ownership of Sharyland, including its property in Mills County, and subsequently changed the name of the company to Oncor.

Several months after acquiring Sharyland, Oncor discovered an alleged error in the Mills County appraisal roll. In January 2020, Oncor filed motions with the Review Board seeking to correct the error. The motions alleged that a clerical error had erroneously overstated the value of the transmission lines in Mills County and that the assessment included property that did not exist as described in the Mills County appraisal roll for 2019. The Appraisal District convened a hearing on the motions but ultimately dismissed them, concluding that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on them.

In April 2020, Oncor filed the lawsuit underlying this appeal pursuant to subsections 25.25(g) and 42.01(a)(1)(B) of the Texas Tax Code seeking review of the matters it had presented to the Review Board in its January 2020 motions. The Appraisal District filed both an answer and a separate plea to the jurisdiction. Its plea asserted that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider Oncor's suit as a result of the statutory agreement that Sharyland had signed. The Review Board included a plea to the jurisdiction in its answer but did not join the Appraisal District's plea. After an evidentiary hearing on the Appraisal District's plea to the jurisdiction, the trial court signed an order specifically granting the Appraisal District's plea but also stating that the "case" was dismissed. Oncor perfected this appeal.

Discussion

This case presents jurisdictional questions only. The merits of Oncor's suit are not at issue.

Whether the trial court ruled on the Review Board's jurisdictional challenge

The first of several jurisdictional issues in this appeal is not a question of subject-matter jurisdiction but whether the trial court's order ruled on the Review Board's jurisdictional challenge at all, i.e., whether the order was a final judgment. If it was not a final judgment, it simply means that Oncor's suit against the Review Board is still pending in the trial court and that the Review Board is not a proper party to this appeal. Either way, however, Oncor is entitled to pursue its appeal. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.014(a)(8) (authorizing interlocutory appeal from order that grants or denies plea to jurisdiction by governmental unit).

In construing a court order, we apply the same rules of interpretation that we apply when construing other written instruments. Lone Star Cement Corp. v. Fair , 467 S.W.2d 402, 404–05 (Tex. 1971) ; Guerrero v. Cardenas , No. 01-20-00045-CV, 2022 WL 210152, at *7 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Jan. 25, 2022, pet. denied) (mem. op.). Because the trial court's dismissal order in this case was not rendered after a conventional trial on the merits, there is no presumption that the court intended to dispose of all claims and parties. Johnson v. Glenview Auto Fund, LLC , No. 02-20-00369-CV, 2021 WL 3557078, at *3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Aug. 12, 2021, no pet.) (mem. op.) ("In a case ... where there has been no conventional trial on the merits, a judgment carries no presumption of finality." (citing Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp. , 39 S.W.3d 191, 199 (Tex. 2001) )).

Here, the initial inquiry is what we may look to in determining whether the trial court intended its order to be a final judgment. The starting—and often ending—point is the language of the order in question. We may look beyond the order's express terms only if its language is ambiguous. Kourosh Hemyari v. Stephens , 355 S.W.3d 623, 626 (Tex. 2011) ("Only where an order's terms are ambiguous—that is, susceptible of more than one reasonable interpretation—do we look to the surrounding circumstances to discern their meaning."). The supreme court's seminal decision in Lehmann "instructs reviewing courts to look at the record ‘only if the order [i]s not clear and unequivocal.’ " In re Elizondo , 544 S.W.3d 824, 827 (Tex. 2018) (orig. proceeding) (quoting In re M & O Homebuilders, Inc. , 516 S.W.3d 101, 106 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, orig. proceeding) ).

"[W]hen there has not been a conventional trial on the merits, an order or judgment is not final for purposes of appeal unless it actually disposes of every pending claim and party or unless it clearly and unequivocally states that it finally disposes of all claims and all parties." In re Elizondo , 544 S.W.3d at 827 (quoting Lehmann , 39 S.W.3d at 205 ) (emphasis in original). In the present case, the trial court's order contains no statement that it was finally disposing of all claims and all parties. Accordingly, in deciding whether we may look to the record, we must determine whether the order actually disposed of every pending claim and party. We believe the "clearly and unequivocally" requirement applies to this element as well.

Reviewing the language of the trial court's dismissal order reveals the following:

• The order was not titled a "Final Judgment" or "Judgment" but an "Order";

• The title of the order—"Order Granting Defendant Mills Central Appraisal District's Plea to the Jurisdiction"—appears to indicate that the trial court was not ruling on the Review Board's jurisdictional challenge;

• The body of the order recited that the hearing was solely on the plea to the jurisdiction filed by the Appraisal District: "... came on for hearing Defendant Mills Central Appraisal District's Plea to the Jurisdiction.";

• The body of the order further recited that "[t]he Court ... is of the opinion that the Plea to the Jurisdiction [singular] is meritorious and should be granted.";

• The order does not contain a Mother Hubbard clause;

• The order does not expressly state that the court was ruling on all parties and claims; • The decretal portion of the order recited that "[i]t is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that Defendant Mills Central Appraisal District's Plea to the Jurisdiction is granted ...."

All of the foregoing seems to indicate that the trial court intended to rule solely on the Appraisal District's plea to the jurisdiction and did not intend to rule on the plea the Review Board had asserted in its Original Answer. But the decretal portion of the order, quoted above, ended with the phrase, "... and this case is hereby dismissed with prejudice." The Appraisal District and the Review Board argue that by this phrase the court effectively dismissed the entire cause, including Oncor's suit against the Review Board.

From the language of the order quoted above, we conclude that the order, construed as a whole, did not actually dispose of Oncor's cause of action against the Review Board and therefore did not actually dispose of every pending claim and party; certainly it did not do so clearly and unequivocally. See Lone Star Cement Corp. v. Fair , 467 S.W.2d 402, 404 (Tex. 1971) ("When considered alone, the caption [of the order] supports the contention that only one party was being dismissed. The body of the order purports to dismiss an entire cause, however. This is an ambiguous order."). Accordingly, we will look to the record to assist in determining the trial court's intent.

The record does shed further light on the trial court's intent. The court opened the hearing by stating that, "So, then, the only hearing on track for this afternoon is the motion I've now identified, the plea to the jurisdiction by the Mills Central Appraisal District." Although the attorney for the Review Board was present in the courtroom during the hearing, when questioned by the court she stated that the Review Board had not joined in the Appraisal District's plea to the jurisdiction and that, "I'm simply here as an observer from the [Review Board's] point of...