Latter Day Deliverance Revival Church and Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church v. the Houston Housing Authority
Opinion
ACCEPTED
01-15-00790-CV
FIRST COURT OF APPEALS
HOUSTON, TEXAS
10/16/2015 3:52:49 PM
CHRISTOPHER PRINE
CLERK
No. 01-15-00790-CV
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS FILED IN 1st COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF TEXAS HOUSTON, TEXAS AT HOUSTON 10/16/2015 3:52:49 PM CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE
Clerk
LATTER DAY DELIVERANCE REVIVAL CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, Appellants,
v.
HOUSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY Appellee.
APPELLANT LATTER DAY DELIVERANCE REVIVAL CHURCH’S RESPONSE TO APPELLEE HOUSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY’S MOTION TO DISMISS INTERLOCUTORY APPEAL AS MOOT
Appellant Latter Day Deliverance Revival Church (Latter Day)
respectfully requests that the Appellee Houston Housing Authority’s (HHA) Motion to Dismiss Interlocutory Appeal As Moot be denied.
1. Latter Day filed this action under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), seeking to prevent HHA from condemning its church property through eminent domain for use as a targeted public-housing project. Latter Day moved for a temporary injunction, and the district court held a hearing.
2. The district court issued an order denying Appellants’ request for temporary injunction on September 1, 2015, on the sole basis that Latter Day had failed to show that HHA’s taking of its church properties would impose a substantial burden on Latter Day’s religious practice. (Ex. A, Order Denying Temporary
Injunction.)
3. Latter Day filed an interlocutory appeal of that decision on September 4, 2015.
4. On September 11, 2015, the trial court entered an order granting the HHA’s plea to the jurisdiction. HHA had argued that the district court lacked jurisdiction because the County Court at Law has exclusive jurisdiction of condemnation actions and because Latter Day allegedly failed to provide the 60-day pre-suit notice usually required by RFRA. 1 5. Latter Day and Christian Fellowship filed a notice of appeal on September 18, 2015 challenging the jurisdictional dismissal. The appeals from the denial of temporary injunction and from the plea to the jurisdiction are consolidated in the above case number. Appellants’ opening brief is due November 18, 2015. Appellants intend to address both the jurisdictional dismissal and the temporary- injunction ruling in their opening brief.
6. HHA moves to dismiss the interlocutory appeal from the denial
of temporary injunction because “it is routinely held that the rendition of a final 1 Latter Day countered that the district courts and county courts at law share concurrent jurisdiction over suits that are related to condemnation actions but not themselves condemnation actions, see Taub v. Aquila Sw. Pipeline Corp., 93 S.W.3d 451 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, no pet.) (allowing a landowner’s trespass to title claim against a condemnor in district court and holding that “the Harris County Civil Courts at Law have jurisdiction, but not exclusive jurisdiction, over a landowner’s claim . . . when those claims are inherently intertwined in an eminent domain proceeding”); county court jurisdiction had not attached because HHA had not served Latter Day with the condemnation action at the time HHA filed its RFRA suit in district court (indeed, it was not served until October 2, 2015); the pre-suit notice requirement is not jurisdictional, see Barr v. City of Sinton, 295 S.W.3d 287, 292 n.8 (Tex. 2009); and even if the pre-suit notice requirement was jurisdictional, Latter Day satisfies the exception to the pre-suit notice requirement, and in any event, complied by providing pre-suit notice before filing its first amended complaint.
judgment moots an appeal from an order denying a temporary injunction.” (Mot. ¶ 4.)
7. The motion should be denied. The rule cited by HHA applies only when the district court renders final judgment on the merits while an appeal of the temporary injunction is pending. The reason is obvious: It makes no sense for an appellate court to review a temporary resolution of the merits when it can instead review a final resolution of the merits on a complete record. As the Texas Supreme Court explained, “[t]he rules of law concerning dismissal of an appeal from a temporary injunction after it has been rendered moot by a final judgment are necessary to prevent premature review of the merits of the case.” Isuani v. Manske- Sheffield Radiology Grp., P.A., 802 S.W.2d 235, 236 (Tex. 1991) (emphasis added). That rule prevents parties from using a temporary-injunction appeal “to obtain an advance ruling on the merits” and the resulting inefficiency of courts reviewing the merits twice. Iranian Muslim Org. v. City of San Antonio, 615 S.W.2d 202, 208 (Tex. 1981) (emphasis added). In both of these Supreme Court cases, the Court dismissed a temporary-injunction appeal as moot where the district court had already rendered final judgment on the merits. Unsurprisingly, every lower-court case cited by HHA likewise involved the scenario where an appellate court dismissed the interlocutory appeal of a temporary injunction after the district court had rendered a
final judgment on the merits.2 8. Neither the mootness rule nor its stated rationale applies here.
The district court did not enter final judgment on the merits. It granted HHA’s plea to the jurisdiction for reasons that have nothing to do with the merits-based reasons it had previously denied the temporary injunction. See Bland Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Blue, 34 S.W.3d 547, 554 (Tex. 2000) (“A plea to the jurisdiction is a dilatory plea, the purpose of which is to defeat a cause of action without regard to whether the claims asserted have merit.”); City of Dallas v. Brown, 373 S.W.3d 204, 208 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, pet. denied) (“In our review of both the plea to the jurisdiction and the temporary injunction, the ultimate merits of the parties’ controversy are not before us.”). Thus, the appeal of the temporary-injunction denial is in no sense “moot.” If this Court reverses the district court’s erroneous jurisdictional ruling, the temporary-injunction ruling would then be ripe for this Court’s review. Reviewing the temporary-injunction ruling would not present the risk of “reviewing the merits
twice” in the same appeal because the district court has not yet entered final 2 See Lowe v. Farm Credit Bank, 2 S.W.3d 293, 299-300 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1999, pet. denied) (upholding grant of summary judgment on merits and dismissing interlocutory appeal of temporary-injunction denial as moot); Save Our Springs Alliance, Inc. v. Austin Independent School District, 973 S.W.2d 378, 384 (Tex. App.—Austin 1998, no pet.) (same); Bonilla v. Roberson, 918 S.W.2d 17, 20-21 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1996, no pet.) (dismissing interlocutory appeal of temporary-injunction denial as moot after final judgment on the merits); Roadrunner Investments, Inc. v. Texas Utilities Fuel Co., 526 S.W.2d 615, 616-17 (Tex. Civ. App.—Fort Worth 1975, no writ) (upholding grant of summary judgment on merits and dismissing interlocutory appeal of temporary- injunction denial as moot); City of Corpus Christi v. Cartwright, 281 S.W.2d 343, 343-44 (Tex. Civ. App.—San Antonio 1955, no writ) (dismissing interlocutory appeal of temporary-injunction denial as moot after final judgment on the merits); Spencer v. Steele, 132 S.W.2d 146, 146 (Tex. Civ. App.—San Antonio 1939, no writ) (same); Jordan v. Landry’s Seafood Restaurant, Inc., 89 S.W.3d 737, 741 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2002, pet. denied) (upholding grant of summary judgment on merits and dismissing appeal of temporary injunction as moot); EMW Manufacturing Co. v. Lemons, 741 S.W.2d 212, 214 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1987) (remanding for trial on merits and dismissing appeal of temporary injunction as moot).
Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI
Latter Day Deliverance Revival Church and Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church v. the Houston Housing Authority (Latter Day Deliverance Revival Church and Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church v. the Houston Housing Authority) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.