Harris County Appraisal District v. Texas Workforce Commission

519 S.W.3d 113, 60 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 949, 2017 WL 2023616, 2017 Tex. LEXIS 452
CourtTexas Supreme Court
DecidedMay 12, 2017
DocketNo. 16-0346
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 519 S.W.3d 113 (Harris County Appraisal District v. Texas Workforce Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Texas Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harris County Appraisal District v. Texas Workforce Commission, 519 S.W.3d 113, 60 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 949, 2017 WL 2023616, 2017 Tex. LEXIS 452 (Tex. 2017).

Opinion

Justice Johnson

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case we consider whether several members of the Harris County Appraisal Review Board are, or were, employed by the Harris County Appraisal District under provisions of the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act such that when their terms of service ended or their workload was reduced, they became eligible for unemployment compensation benefits. The Texas Workforce Commission determined that they were. The district court disagreed and set the Commission’s decisions aside. The court of appeals reversed.

We affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.

I. Background

The Harris County Appraisal District (HCAD) is statutorily tasked with appraising property in Harris County for purposes of calculating ad valorem property taxes. Tex. Tax Code § 6.01(b). Taxpayers may contest HCAD’s valuation decisions before the Harris County Appraisal Review Board, which is an administrative entity with statutory authority to modify property appraisal valuations. Id. § 41.01(a). Applicants for Board, positions submit their applications through HCAD, and members of the Board are appointed to two-year terms by the local administrative law judge. Id. § 6.41(d-1), (e). The Board members are paid by the hour for the time they work, and the amount they work is determined by how many valuation decisions are contested. Id. § 6.42(c). Members may serve a maximum of three consecutive terms. Id. § 6.412(e).

Several members of the Board served the maximum of three terms and then filed for unemployment compensation with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), alleging that they were last employed by HCAD. Several other members who were still serving on the Board, but whose hours had been reduced to the point that they were working only sporadically, also filed for benefits and indicated that HCAD was their employer. A total of fifteen persons1 (collectively, claimants) filed claims. The TWC determined that each of the claims was valid and the claimants were entitled to compensation.

HCAD appealed to the TWC appeal tribunal, claiming that there was not and never had been an employment relationship between the claimants and HCAD under the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act’s (TUCA) definition of employment. The appeal tribunal upheld the TWC’s determinations.

HCAD then filed suits in the district court challenging the administrative determinations. The court consolidated the suits, and the parties filed competing motions for summary judgment. The TWC urged that HCAD was the claimants’ last employer under section 201.041 of the Texas Labor Code and it correctly decided the [117]*117claimants qualified for unemployment compensation. HCAD urged two grounds, in its motion. First, it argued that the claimants fell within an exception in TUCA for members of the judiciary. Second, it argued that the Texas Tax Code does not permit appraisal districts to exercise control or direction over appraisal review boards, thus the claimants were not its employees.

The district court denied the TWC’s motion, granted HCAD’s, and set aside the TWC’s decisions awarding compensation. The TWC appealed.

The court of appeals reversed and reinstated the TWC’s determinations. 488 S.W.3d 843, 846 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2016). The court first determined that because HCAD. paid the claimants for their services, a presumption of employment arose under the Labor Code. Id. at 849 (citing Tex. Lab. Code § 201.041). It then determined that Board members were not subject to the members of the judiciary exemption in the Labor Code because the context of that statute indicates, that the exemption should only reach members of the judiciary proper—i.e., judges—and not persons such as the claimants who engage in quasi-judicial functions. Id. at 860-61.

The court also considered HCAD’s argument that the Tax Code both prohibits it from exercising any control over the Board and prevents HCAD employees from serving on the Board. Id. at 863-66. The court held that the Tax Code provisions were relevant, but not- conclusive, and that the employment analysis is a factual one entailing a twenty-factor test derived from the common law and adopted by the TWC. Id. at 853. The crux of this common law test is whether the claimants are subject to the control and direction of HCAD. Id. at 855. The court concluded that substantial evidence supported the TWC’s determinations under the proper deferential standard of review as to several of the factors. Id. at 854.

' In this Court, HCAD reprises the arguments it made in the court of appeals. It first argues that the court of appeals erred by concluding that the claimants do not meet the Labor Code’s definition of “members bf the judiciary.” See Tex. Lab. Code § 201.063(a), HCAD asserts that because Board members perform judicial functions, they substantively function as members of the judiciary. Additionally, HCAD argues that public policy supports this finding because Board members are expected to be neutral judges of property values. HCAD also argues that the court of appeals misinterpreted the relevant Tax Code provisions because the Legislature clearly forbids Board members from being employees of HCAD. Additionally, HCAD asserts that the TWC arbitrarily and unreasonably disregarded its own regulations in deciding that HCAD has a right to control Board members. Lhst, HCAD argues that the court of appeals misapplied the twenty-factor test for employment set out by the TWC’s regulation because neither evidence nor a presumption reasonably supports the TWC’s determinations that Board members are employees of HCAD.

In response, the TWC argues that the court of appeals was correct in affirming the TWC’s determinations because substantial evidence supports the TWC’s decisions. It maintains that Board members do not qualify as members of the judiciary and thus are not excepted from entitlement to unemployment compensation. Furthermore, the TWC argues the Tax Code provisions HCAD cites do not override, or even contradict, TUCA’s own definition of “employment.”

II. Standard of Review

A trial court reviews the TWC’s decision regarding unemployment benefits [118]*118by trial de novo to determine whether substantial evidence supports the TWC’s ruling. Tex. Lab. Code § 212.202(a); Collingsworth Gen. Hosp. v. Hunnicutt, 988 S.W.2d 706, 708 (Tex. 1998). Trial de novo of a TWC ruling “requires the court to determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the ruling of the agency, but the reviewing court must look to the evidence presented in trial and not the record created by the agency.” Mercer v. Ross, 701 S.W.2d 830, 831 (Tex. 1986).

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519 S.W.3d 113, 60 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 949, 2017 WL 2023616, 2017 Tex. LEXIS 452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-county-appraisal-district-v-texas-workforce-commission-tex-2017.