Occidental Chemical Corporation v. ETC NGL Transport, LLC

425 S.W.3d 354, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 5565, 2011 WL 2930133
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 20, 2011
Docket01-11-00536-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 425 S.W.3d 354 (Occidental Chemical Corporation v. ETC NGL Transport, LLC) 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.

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Occidental Chemical Corporation v. ETC NGL Transport, LLC, 425 S.W.3d 354, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 5565, 2011 WL 2930133 (Tex. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

TERRY JENNINGS, Justice.

In this interlocutory appeal, 1 appellant, Occidental Chemical Corporation (“Occidental”), challenges the district court’s order granting appellee, ETC NGL Transport, LLC (“ETC”), a temporary injunction and enjoining Occidental from interfering with ETC’s entry onto a pipeline corridor, which is owned by Occidental, to conduct a preliminary survey and assessment regarding ETC’s proposed construction of a liquid natural gas pipeline within the corridor. In six issues, 2 Occidental contends that the district court lacked jurisdiction to grant the temporary injunction and, alternatively, the district court erred in granting the temporary injunction and the temporary injunction is “invalid because it fails to meet procedural requirements.”

We affirm the order of the district court.

Background

In April and May 2011, ETC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, LP, a natural gas transportation company, requested that Occidental allow ETC to enter onto Occidental’s pipeline corridor to conduct a preliminary survey and environmental assessment of the corridor for construction of a liquid natural gas pipeline. ETC intends to build the pipeline to transport liquid natural gas for a distance of approximately 55 miles from a location in Fort Bend County to another location in Mont Belvieu, Texas. As noted by Occidental, it, as the owner of the corridor, denied ETC’s requests because it has its own “strategic plans for the entire corridor,” which ETC’s proposed pipeline would effectively preclude. On May 19, 2011, ETC obtained a “T-4 permit” from the Texas Railroad Commission (“TRRC”) to operate its proposed pipeline as a “common carrier.”

After obtaining its TRRC permit and being denied entry onto Occidental’s corridor, ETC, on May 23, 2011, filed the instant suit in the district court, seeking declaratory relief and and a temporary injunction to enjoin Occidental from interfering with ETC’s right, as a common carrier, to enter upon Occidental’s corridor to conduct its survey work and assessments. On June 2, 2011, the district court, after a hearing, entered its order granting ETC’s application for a temporary injunction and enjoining Occidental from “taking any action to interfere” with ETC “entering on [Occidental’s corridor] to conduct surveys, including locating any survey monuments on [Occidental’s corridor] needed to determine the existing boundary of [Occidental’s corridor] and staking the potential easement right-of-way, and to conduct preliminary environmental assessments on [Occidental’s corridor].”

Jurisdiction

In its first issue, Occidental argues that we must vacate the district court’s *359 temporary injunction because “ETC’s suit for access is an eminent domain proceeding” and the Texas Legislature “has expressly granted exclusive jurisdiction over eminent domain proceedings to the Harris County [civil] courts at law.” 3 See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 25.1032(c) (Vernon Supp. 2010). Occidental asserts that Harris County civil courts at law have “exclusive jurisdiction over an action brought by a common carrier to enter land pursuant to its eminent domain power.” In response, ETC argues that this is not an “eminent domain proceeding” as contemplated in section 25.1032(c) because “[t]his is not an eminent domain or condemnation suit,” rather, it is simply “an injunction suit.” ETC emphasizes that before an eminent domain proceeding as contemplated in section 25.1032(c) may be filed, ETC needs a survey “to obtain metes and bounds description of the easement” to “have an adequate description of the property that it intends to take when it files a condemnation petition.” See Tex. Prop. Code Ann. § 21.012 (Vernon Supp. 2010).

We begin our jurisdictional analysis by noting that there is a constitutional presumption that district courts are authorized to resolve disputes. See In re Entergy Corp., 142 S.W.3d 316, 322 (Tex.2004). Pursuant to the Texas Constitution, a district court’s jurisdiction “consists of exclusive, appellate, and original jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and remedies, except in cases where exclusive, appellate, or original jurisdiction may be conferred by this Constitution or other law on some other court, tribunal, or administrative body.” Id. (quoting Tex. Const, art. V, § 8). And Texas district courts, which are constitutional courts of general jurisdiction, have jurisdiction to issue writs of injunction as well as jurisdiction over claims for declaratory relief. See Tex. Const, art. V, §§ 1, 8; Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 24.007, 24.008 (Vernon Supp. 2010). Thus, our district courts are courts of general jurisdiction and presumed to have subject matter jurisdiction absent a showing to the contrary. Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12 S.W.3d 71, 75 (Tex.2000).

Accordingly, we must determine whether the Texas Legislature, in enacting section 25.1032(c)] intended for a suit like the one before us, i.e., a suit brought in Harris County to enforce the right of a common carrier to enter property to conduct a preliminary survey prior to the acquisition of easement rights, be brought only in county civil courts at law. In construing section 25.1032(c), our primary objective is to ascertain and give effect to the legislature’s intent as expressed by the language of the statute. Galbraith Eng’g Consultants, Inc. v. Pachucha, 290 S.W.3d 863, 867 (Tex.2009); City of Rockwall v. Hughes, 246 S.W.3d 621, 625 (Tex.2008).

Section 25.1032(c) provides in pertinent part:

A county civil court at law has exclusive jurisdiction in Harris County of eminent domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse, regardless of the amount in controversy.

*360 (Emphasis added.) Construing this sentence in its entirety, we conclude that the legislature did not intend for a suit like the one before us be brought only in county civil courts at law. The legislature’s specific inclusion of the second and third clauses of the above quoted sentence reveals its intent to confer on Harris County civil courts at law exclusive jurisdiction only over “statutory and inverse” condemnation proceedings involving damages for a taking of property. Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 25.1032(c). Thus, in referencing “eminent domain proceedings,” section 25.1032(c) specifically contemplates the meaning we commonly attribute to such proceedings — either statutory condemnation proceedings as outlined in Chapter 21 of the Texas Property Code, which is entitled “Eminent Domain,” or inverse condemnation proceedings.

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425 S.W.3d 354, 2011 Tex. App. LEXIS 5565, 2011 WL 2930133, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/occidental-chemical-corporation-v-etc-ngl-transport-llc-texapp-2011.