Godley Independent School District v. Dan C. Woods

Opinion

Godley Independent School District v. Dan C. Woods

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-99-317-CV

     GODLEY INDEPENDENT

     SCHOOL DISTRICT,

                                                                         Appellant

     v.

     DAN C. WOODS,

                                                                         Appellee

From the 18th District Court

Johnson County, Texas

Trial Court # 155-97

DISSENTING OPINION

      Let us make it less difficult and less expensive to either get to a disposition on the merits or dispose of cases that will never be reached on the merits. Because this case unnecessarily creates yet another procedural barrier to a quick and efficient resolution of a case, I respectfully dissent.

      Woods is a school teacher. He sued Godley Independent School District for various claims all stemming from his relationship with Godley. “Under any construction, though, Woods’ petition plainly involves the administration of school laws and disputed fact issues. Thus he was required to exhaust the administrative remedies provided by the Education Code before he could look to the courts for relief. Tex. Educ. Code. Ann. §§ 7.057(a), 21.255, 21.258, 21.301...” Maj. Op. at 6.

      The question the majority chose to decide is whether Godley must challenge Woods’s failure to plead facts sufficient to show the trial court has jurisdiction by special exception before it challenges the trial court’s jurisdiction by a plea to the jurisdiction. The majority holds that a special exception is required first. In this manner the majority holds that every plea to the jurisdiction asserting the plaintiff has failed to exhaust administrative remedies should be denied by the trial court if it could, in theory, be cured by additional pleadings, unless a special exception has been filed, and an amendment ordered. I find that this would frustrate the legislative purpose of allowing interlocutory appeals from pleas to the jurisdiction by governmental entities. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 51.014(8). While there may be nothing inherently wrong with attempting to clarify the plaintiff’s pleadings by special exceptions, the legislature did not require it, nor would I.

      The majority bases their holding on the concept that a plaintiff must be given the opportunity to amend any defect in pleadings that could, in theory, be cured. Maj. Op. at 8. The phrase “in theory” is used because the plea to the jurisdiction must be decided based upon the allegations as contained in the plaintiff’s pleadings. City of Cleburne v. Trussell, 10 S.W.3d 407 (Tex. App.—Waco 2000, no pet. h.). The plea to the jurisdiction should not be an evidentiary hearing, and the trial court does not resort to hearing evidence to resolve it. Bland Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Blue, 989 S.W.2d 441 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1999, pet. granted). Bland contains an excellent discussion of the nature of the hearing and the limited circumstances in which the trial court is to look beyond the pleadings. The issue to resolve at the hearing on the plea to the jurisdiction is a simple matter of whether the plaintiff has either: (1) affirmatively plead himself out of court; or (2) whether he has failed to pled himself within the jurisdiction of the court after an opportunity to amend.

      While the majority’s reliance on the need to allow the plaintiff an opportunity to amend is based on a proper concept of the law, this concept does not mean that a special exception is the only way to put a party on notice of a possible pleading defect and the need to cure it. When the Supreme Court memorialized the requirement that the plaintiff facing a plea to the jurisdiction, must have the opportunity to amend their pleadings to meet the complaint, they cited to the supplemental pleading rule, not the rule regarding special exceptions. Texas Assoc. of Business v. Texas Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 446 (Tex. 1993); Tex. R. Civ. P. 80; Tex. R. Civ. P. 91. The rule cited by the Supreme Court in Texas Association of Business, provides that the plaintiff’s supplemental petition may contain “...the allegations of new matter not before alleged by him, in reply to those which have been alleged by the defendant.” Tex. R. Civ. P. 80. If the Supreme Court had intended to require a special exception, the new allegations would necessarily appear in an amended petition and the rules regarding special exceptions and amending pleadings would have been the ones cited. Tex. R. Civ. P. 91; Tex. R. Civ. P. 62-65.

      Furthermore, in Grounds, the Supreme Court specifically noted that the preferred method of bringing the challenge was by a plea to the jurisdiction. Grounds v. Tolar Indep. Sch. Dist., 707 S.W.2d 889, 893 (Tex. 1986). Additionally, it is clear that if the trial court denied the plaintiff an opportunity to amend, or failed to consider an amended or supplemental pleading, it would be error. Ramirez v. Lyford Consol. Sch. Dist., 900 S.W.2d 902 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1995, no writ). In Ramirez, the trial court granted a plea to the jurisdiction the day after it was filed. The Corpus Christi Court held: “Unless the petition affirmatively demonstrates that no cause of action exists or that plaintiff’s recovery is barred, we require the trial court to give the plaintiff an opportunity to amend before granting a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment.” Id. The Court did not say the opportunity to amend had to be by special exception. It seems that either a supplemental pleading or an amendment would be appropriate in response to an answer asserting that the plaintiff had failed to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit.

THE OPPORTUNITY TO “AMEND” IN THIS CASE

      In this case, Godley filed its answer on August 7, 1997 asserting a lack of jurisdiction because Woods failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. This answer, alerting Woods to his pleading defect, had been on file for over 21 months when Godley filed a plea to the jurisdiction on June 24, 1999. In fact, the case had been on file for so long with no action, that a notice of dismissal for want of prosecution had been sent to the parties. In the face of the plea to the jurisdiction, Woods still refused to supplement or amend his pleading to correct for his failure to plead that he had exhausted his administrative remedies or that for some reason he was not required to exhaust them. Woods simply chose to stand on his existing pleadings, which, at that stage, was procedurally similar to the situation when a special exception has been granted but no amendment filed.

      After almost two months to amend his pleading in direct response to the plea to the jurisdiction, on August 11, 1999 a hearing on Godley’s plea in abatement was held. The plea was denied by a written order signed on October 7, 1999. From this denial the legislature has authorized a direct appeal. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 151.014(8) (Vernon Supp. 2000).

APPLICATION

      Woods had over 2 years to supplement or amend his pleadings after Godley’s answer was filed challenging the court’s authority to hear the case because of Woods’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies. He had almost 2 months to supplement or amend his pleading after the plea was filed. This is ample opportunity to supplement or amend. Woods elected to stand on his pleadings. Having failed to allege he had exhausted his administrative remedies, or in the alternative, allege a reason he was not required to exhaust such remedies, the plea to the jurisdiction should have been granted and the suit dismissed.

      If Godley is required to file a special exception before the plea to the jurisdiction, and if the trial court denies the special exception, like he did the plea to the jurisdiction, Godley will be denied the ability to bring an interlocutory appeal as specifically authorized by the legislature. At the very least Godley will be substantially delayed by the additional procedure requiring a special exception to be prepared and filed, heard by the court, order prepared and filed and then waiting for an amendment to determine if the amended pleading is adequate before filing another special exception to the amended pleading or a plea to the jurisdiction. This is a needless use of litigation resources when Woods had ample opportunity to amend his allegations.

BUT IS IT REALLY JURISDICTIONAL?

      For some claims of failure to exhaust administrative remedies it is critical to distinguish what the claim is because the nature of the administrative remedy frequently controls which court will have jurisdiction to review the administrative decision. Cornyn v. County of Hill, 10 S.W.3d 424 (Tex. App.—Waco 2000, no pet. h.). If review of the administrative decision would necessarily have to occur in a Travis County district court, a suit filed in any other court, with or without exhausting administrative remedies, would be subject to a plea to the jurisdiction. As the majority takes great pains to point out, some of Woods’s claims could be brought in a district court in Johnson County, if he had actually exhausted his administrative remedies.

      I agree with the concern of the majority regarding the effect of Dubai in this situation. Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12 S.W.3d 71 (Tex. 2000); Maj. Op. at 4, n. 1. The rational of Dubai is that if the problem could be cured by an amendment, the problem is not one of jurisdiction, only of pleadings. If the rational of Dubai applies to governmental entities asserting a plea to the jurisdiction based upon a failure to plead exhaustion of administrative remedies which could conceivably be cured by amendment, the failure is simply a pleading defect and can never be challenged by a plea to the jurisdiction, before or after a special exception. Based upon that logic, the ruling against Godley is correct and would be affirmed.

      To preserve for governmental entities the legislatively created ability to utilize an interlocutory appeal of a ruling on a plea to the jurisdiction in this type case, I would not extend Dubai to a governmental entity. Otherwise, there is no reason that the holding in Dubai would not be dispositive of this entire appeal. Nor is Dubai limited to pleading defects about exhausting administrative remedies that could be cured by amendment. In its broadest application, Dubai would apply to any situation in which the most liberal construction of the pleadings could conceivably give the trial court jurisdiction of some claim the plaintiff could make against the defendant. The ability to collaterally attack an otherwise valid judgment on jurisdictional grounds was the problem Dubai was supposed to cure. It may have the unintended effect of negating legislative intent and trampling several of the ways that parties have traditionally disposed of frivolous suits.

                                                                               TOM GRAY

                                                                               Justice

Dissenting opinion delivered and filed June 7, 2000

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