City of Cibolo v. Cibolo Turnpike, LP

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 19, 2025
Docket04-24-00532-CV
StatusPublished

This text of City of Cibolo v. Cibolo Turnpike, LP (City of Cibolo v. Cibolo Turnpike, LP) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Cibolo v. Cibolo Turnpike, LP, (Tex. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

Fourth Court of Appeals San Antonio, Texas

OPINION No. 04-24-00532-CV

CITY OF CIBOLO, Appellant

v.

CIBOLO TURNPIKE, LP, Appellee

From the 2nd 25th Judicial District Court, Guadalupe County, Texas Trial Court No. 20-0062-CV-A The Honorable Margaret Garner Mirabal, Judge Presiding

Opinion by: Irene Rios, Justice

Sitting: Irene Rios, Justice Lori I. Valenzuela, Justice H. Todd McCray, Justice

Delivered and Filed: November 19, 2025

AFFIRMED

Appellant City of Cibolo (“the City”) appeals the trial court’s order denying its plea to the

jurisdiction. The City argues the trial court does not have jurisdiction over appellee Cibolo

Turnpike, LP’s (“CTLP”) breach of contract claim because CTLP does not have standing to sue

the City and none of the requested relief is recoverable under the City’s waiver of governmental

immunity. We hold CTLP has standing to pursue its breach of contract claim and the City’s waiver 04-24-00532-CV

of governmental immunity permits suit for a breach of contract claim where the relief requested is

for specific performance. Because the trial court has jurisdiction to adjudicate CTLP’s request for

specific performance, we need not determine in this interlocutory appeal whether it may recover

monetary damages from the City. We affirm the trial court’s order denying the plea to the

jurisdiction.

BACKGROUND

According to CTLP’s original petition, the City sought to build a toll road that ran through

Cibolo, Texas. The City and CTLP entered into a development agreement (the “Agreement”) that

laid out the parties’ obligations in pursuit of construction of the toll road. According to the City,

the toll road was to be funded entirely by CTLP and no public funds were to be expended for the

project. At some point, the City began to suspect CTLP was not meeting its metrics to advance

the project under the Agreement and requested additional information from CTLP. Unsatisfied

with CTLP’s response, the City terminated the Agreement citing CTLP’s alleged failure to meet

the metrics in the agreement. CTLP sued the City for breach of contract. After more than four

years of litigation, the City filed a plea to the jurisdiction claiming the trial court did not have

jurisdiction over CTLP’s suit for breach of contract. The trial court denied the plea to the

jurisdiction. The City appeals.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

A plea to the jurisdiction challenges the trial court’s authority to determine the subject

matter of a specific cause of action. City of San Antonio v. Rogers Shavano Ranch, Ltd.,

383 S.W.3d 234, 241 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2012, pet. denied). Because subject matter

jurisdiction presents a question of law, we review the trial court’s decision under a de novo

standard of review. Id.

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“[T]o prevail, the party asserting the plea to the jurisdiction must show that even if all the

allegations in the plaintiff’s pleadings are taken as true, there is an incurable jurisdictional defect

apparent from the face of the pleadings, rendering it impossible for the plaintiff’s petition to confer

jurisdiction on the trial court.” Tex. Parks & Wildlife Dep’t v. Dearing, 150 S.W.3d 452, 457–58

(Tex. App.—Austin 2004, pet. denied). “When a defendant challenges jurisdiction, a court is not

required to look solely to the pleadings but may consider evidence and must do so when necessary

to resolve the jurisdictional issues raised.” Town of Shady Shores v. Swanson, 590 S.W.3d 544,

550 (Tex. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted).

We also review issues of statutory construction de novo. See Tex. Lottery Comm’n v. First

State Bank of DeQueen, 325 S.W.3d 628, 635 (Tex. 2010).

STANDING

In its fifth issue, the City asserts that CTLP does not have standing because CTLP’s alleged

injuries are not traceable to the City.

“Lack of constitutional standing deprives the trial court of subject-matter jurisdiction.”

Busbee v. County of Medina, 681 S.W.3d 391, 395 (Tex. 2023). “Standing is thus a threshold

jurisdictional issue that parties may raise by a plea to the jurisdiction.” Id. To have standing, the

plaintiff must show a concrete injury that is traceable to the defendant’s conduct and redressable

by court order. Id. “[A] plaintiff does not lack standing simply because some other legal principle

may prevent it from prevailing on the merits; rather, a plaintiff lacks standing if its claim of injury

is too slight for a court to afford redress.” McLane Champions, LLC v. Hous. Baseball Partners

LLC, 671 S.W.3d 907, 913 (Tex. 2023). “A plaintiff establishes standing to maintain a breach-of-

contract action by demonstrating that it has an enforceable interest as a party to the contract, as an

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assignee of a party, or as a third[-]party beneficiary.” Hinton v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC,

533 S.W.3d 44, 48 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2017, no pet.).

Here, CTLP and the City entered into the developmental agreement. Thus, they are both

parties to the Agreement that CTLP claims the City breached. CTLP alleges the City breached

this Agreement when it failed to fully cooperate with CTLP to advance the project. CTLP also

alleges the City’s breach of the Agreement caused it financial harm and the potential collapse of

the toll road project. As such, CTLP has alleged a concrete injury traceable to the City, i.e., the

City’s breach of the Agreement, and seeks damages and/or specific performance by judicial decree.

We conclude CTLP’s pleadings establish that it has standing to bring its suit for breach of contract.

The City’s fifth issue is overruled.

GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY

In its remaining issues, the City argues the trial court does not have jurisdiction over

CTLP’s breach of contract claim because governmental immunity for CTLP’s claim has not been

waived by the legislature. Although governmental immunity for breach of contract claims is

typically waived under section 271.152 of the local government code, the City argues CTLP must

plead relief allowed under section 271.153 to be entitled to the waiver of immunity under section

271.152. CTLP pled various damages flowing from the alleged breach of contract but also pled a

request for specific performance. 1 The City contends the relief pled by CTLP is outside the waiver

of governmental immunity.

“At its core, the doctrine [of governmental immunity] recognizes that if the government

should undertake to guarantee to the public the carefulness of all its officers, agents, and

employees, it would soon become involved in endless embarrassments, difficulties, and losses

1 In its fourth issue, the City contends actual damages and specific performance are not allowable remedies under the City’s waiver of governmental immunity in chapter 271 of the local government code.

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which would be so subversive to the public interest as to compel it to abandon all but the bare

essentials of a public government.” Hughes v.

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