in Re City of Dallas

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 20, 2015·No. 10-14-00171-CV·Published

Opinion

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-14-00090-CV

CITY OF DALLAS, Appellant

v.

CITY OF CORSICANA, NAVARRO COUNTY, AND NAVARRO COLLEGE, Appellees

From the County Court

Navarro County, Texas

Trial Court No. C13-22750-CV

No. 10-14-00171-CV

IN RE CITY OF DALLAS

Original Proceeding

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In this interlocutory appeal and this original proceeding arising out of a petition for rule 202 pre-suit depositions by the City of Corsicana, Navarro College, and Navarro County, the City of Dallas complains about the trial court’s denial of Dallas’s plea to the jurisdiction and the trial court’s grant of the rule 202 petition and ordering of depositions.

Plea to the Jurisdiction

Navarro’s rule 202 amended petition alleges that City of Corsicana, Navarro College, and Navarro County (collectively Navarro) entered into tax-abatement agreements with Home Depot in 2009. The agreements provided for liquidated damages if Home Depot failed to perform, with the liquidated damages consisting of all taxes that otherwise would have been paid to Navarro without the benefit of the abatements, plus interest.

In 2011, Home Depot entered into a tax-abatement agreement with Dallas, and later that year it announced that it was closing its warehouse facility in Corsicana and moving its operations to Dallas. Navarro sued Home Depot for liquidated damages under the Navarro tax-abatement agreements, and that suit was settled.

Navarro then filed its rule 202 petition against Dallas in Navarro County and based venue there on an anticipated suit, which was a claim for tortious interference with the tax-abatement agreements between Navarro and Home Depot. Dallas filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting its immunity from the tortious-interference claim because its negotiation of its own tax-abatement agreement with Home Depot was the exercise of a governmental function. Navarro filed a rule 202 amended petition and asserted that Dallas did not have immunity because Dallas’s act of luring away Home Depot’s warehouse facility to Dallas was a proprietary act, not a governmental function. Dallas City of Dallas v. City of Corsicana, Navarro County, and Navarro College Page 2 then filed a second plea to the jurisdiction in response to the amended petition. After a hearing, the trial court denied the plea to the jurisdiction and granted the petition in an order that allows depositions and the production of documents.

Dallas’s first issue in its interlocutory appeal asserts that the trial court erred in denying the plea to the jurisdiction. A rule 202 petition must “be filed in a proper court of any county … .”1 TEX. R. CIV. P. 202.2(b) (emphasis added). Rule 202 does not itself waive sovereign or governmental immunity. City of Dallas v. Dallas Black Fire Fighters Ass’n, 353 S.W.3d 547, 553-54 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2011, no pet.). A “proper court” is a court with subject-matter jurisdiction over the underlying dispute, so we must look to the substantive law of the underlying dispute or the anticipated suit to determine jurisdiction. See id. at 554-57; In re Donna ISD, 299 S.W.3d 456, 459-61 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 2009, orig. proceeding); cf. In re Dallas County Hosp. Dist., No. 05-14-00249-CV, 2014 WL 1407415, at *3 (Tex. App.—Dallas Apr. 1, 2014, orig. proceeding) (“The trial court abused its discretion in concluding that real party was entitled to discovery under Rule 202 under the facts of this case because there was no evidence before the trial court that could provide a basis for concluding that real party’s potential claim would not be barred by sovereign immunity.”)2

1 Because Dallas did not object to venue in Navarro County, no venue issue is before us.

2 We disagree with Dallas that it is immune simply because Navarro is seeking investigatory pre-suit depositions under rule 202.1(b), rather than pre-suit depositions for use in an anticipated suit under rule 202.1(a). While, as just noted above, rule 202 is not a waiver of immunity, with a petition for investigatory pre-suit depositions under rule 202.1(b), we still look at the underlying dispute or potential claim to determine the trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. See Donna ISD, 299 S.W.3d at 460. And the Dallas Court of Appeals has rejected the City of Dallas’s similar argument, stating: “Thus, the fact that rule 202 does not provide for waiver of immunity is not dispositive as to whether a rule 202 deposition can be used to investigate a potential claim against a governmental entity that has immunity from suit.” Dallas Black

City of Dallas v. City of Corsicana, Navarro County, and Navarro College Page 3

A municipality’s immunity from suit defeats a trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction; thus, it is properly asserted in a plea to the jurisdiction. See Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 225-26 (Tex. 2004). Whether the trial court has subject-matter jurisdiction is a question of law that we review de novo. Tex. Natural Res. Conservation Comm’n v. IT-Davy, 74 S.W.3d 849, 855 (Tex. 2002).

A plea to the jurisdiction seeks to dismiss a case for want of jurisdiction. Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 226-

27 (Tex. 2004). When reviewing whether a plea was properly granted [or denied], we first look to the pleadings to determine if jurisdiction is proper, construing them liberally in favor of the plaintiffs and looking to the pleader’s intent. Id. at 226. The allegations found in the pleadings may either affirmatively demonstrate or negate the court’s jurisdiction. Id. at 226-27. If the pleadings do neither, it is an issue of pleading sufficiency and the plaintiff should be given an opportunity to amend the pleadings. Id.

City of Waco v. Kirwan, 298 S.W.3d 618, 621-22 (Tex. 2009). “If the pleadings affirmatively negate the existence of jurisdiction, then a plea to the jurisdiction may be granted without allowing the plaintiffs an opportunity to amend.” Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 227. The plaintiff has the burden of alleging facts that affirmatively establish the trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Tex. Ass’n of Bus. v. Tex. Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 446 (Tex. 1993). We accept the pleading’s factual allegations as true. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226.

Governmental functions “are those functions that are enjoined on a municipality by law and are given it by the state as part of the state’s sovereignty, to be exercised by

Fire Fighters Ass’n, 353 S.W.3d at 554; see also Combs v. Tex. Civ. Rights Project, 410 S.W.3d 529, 534-35 (Tex. App.—Austin 2013, pet. denied) (“while pre-suit depositions under rule 202 are not necessarily barred by sovereign immunity, governmental entities are protected from pre-suit depositions to the same extent they would be protected from the same depositions in the contemplated suit underlying the proceedings”).

City of Dallas v. City of Corsicana, Navarro County, and Navarro College Page 4 the municipality in the interest of the general public.” TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 101.0215(a) (West Supp. 2014). That statute then sets forth a lengthy, non-exhaustive list of governmental functions and a short, non-exhaustive list of proprietary functions. Id. § 101.0215(a, b). “[T]he Legislature has expressly provided that proprietary functions of a municipality do not include those governmental activities listed in the statute. Id. at § 101.0215(c). Therefore, the Legislature has given deference to the judiciary to interpret what constitutes a proprietary function only to the extent it is not listed in the statute.” City of Boerne v. Vaughan, No. 04-12-00177-CV, 2012 WL 2839889, at *2 (Tex. App.—San Antonio July 11, 2012, no pet.).

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