Lexplug logoLexplug

Lone Star Groundwater Conservation Dist. v. City of Conroe

Court of Appeals of Texas
2017 WL 444362, 515 S.W.3d 406, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 925 (2017)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Under the Texas Water Code, directors of a groundwater conservation district are immune from suit for their official votes and actions, provided there are no claims of conflicts of interest, abuse of office, or constitutional violations. While the district itself is not immune from suits challenging the validity of its rules, it retains governmental immunity from claims for attorney's fees, as neither the Water Code nor the Declaratory Judgments Act expressly waives such immunity.


Facts:

  • The Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District (the District), a political subdivision of Texas, is responsible for regulating groundwater in Montgomery County.
  • The District's board of Directors voted on and adopted a series of rules governing groundwater production.
  • These rules placed annual volume limits on the amount of groundwater that several public and private entities, known as the 'Large Water Producers,' could extract from their wells.
  • The Large Water Producers believed these production limits exceeded the regulatory authority granted to the District by the Texas Legislature.
  • The District threatened to enforce these groundwater production rules against the Large Water Producers.

Procedural Posture:

  • The Large Water Producers filed suit against the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District and its Directors in a Texas state trial court.
  • The suit sought a declaratory judgment that the District's rules were invalid and also requested an award of attorney's fees.
  • The District and the Directors filed separate pleas to the jurisdiction, asserting governmental and official immunity from the suit, respectively.
  • The trial court conducted a hearing on the pleas.
  • Following the hearing, the trial court issued orders denying both pleas, thereby finding that it had subject-matter jurisdiction over all claims.
  • The District and the Directors, as appellants, filed a timely interlocutory appeal of the trial court's orders to the Texas Court of Appeals.

Locked

Premium Content

Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief

You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture

Issue:

Under the Texas Water Code, are directors of a groundwater conservation district immune from suits challenging their official votes, and is the district itself immune from claims for attorney's fees associated with a challenge to its rules?


Opinions:

Majority - Justice Hollis Horton

Yes. The Texas Water Code grants immunity to directors for their official votes where no corruption is alleged, and the district retains its governmental immunity from claims for attorney's fees because no statute expressly waives it. For the Directors, Texas Water Code § 36.066(a) provides unambiguous immunity from suit and liability for 'official votes and official actions.' This immunity is broad, with narrow exceptions for conflicts of interest, abuse of office, or constitutional violations, none of which were alleged here. For the District, while Water Code § 36.251 expressly waives immunity for suits challenging the validity of a district's rules, neither that statute nor the Declaratory Judgments Act contains a clear and express waiver of immunity for claims for attorney's fees. A general authorization to award fees is insufficient to waive a governmental entity's immunity from monetary claims. Furthermore, allowing recovery under the general Declaratory Judgments Act would contradict the more specific Water Code, which permits a district to recover fees if it prevails but is silent on a challenger's right to do so.



Analysis:

This decision clarifies the scope of immunity for groundwater conservation districts and their directors in Texas, creating a sharp distinction between suits against the entity and suits against its officials. It establishes that while a district's substantive rulemaking can be challenged in court, the directors who voted for those rules are personally shielded from litigation, which serves to promote uninhibited legislative action by officials. The ruling also reinforces the high bar for waiving governmental immunity, particularly for monetary claims like attorney's fees, holding that such waivers must be express and are narrowly construed. This creates a practical financial hurdle for parties wishing to challenge agency rules, as they cannot recover litigation costs even if they prevail on the merits of their claim.

🤖 Gunnerbot:
Query Lone Star Groundwater Conservation Dist. v. City of Conroe (2017) directly. You can ask questions about any aspect of the case. If it's in the case, Gunnerbot will know.
Locked
Subscribe to Lexplug to chat with the Gunnerbot about this case.

Unlock the full brief for Lone Star Groundwater Conservation Dist. v. City of Conroe