Walker v. City of Georgetown

86 S.W.3d 249, 2002 Tex. App. LEXIS 5409, 2002 WL 1726912
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 26, 2002
Docket03-01-00151-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 86 S.W.3d 249 (Walker v. City of Georgetown) 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.

Bluebook
Walker v. City of Georgetown, 86 S.W.3d 249, 2002 Tex. App. LEXIS 5409, 2002 WL 1726912 (Tex. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

DAVID PURYEAR, Justice.

Mark and Debbie Walker filed suit against the City of Georgetown (the “City”) seeking a declaration that the City failed to comply with certain statutory and constitutional provisions before entering into a lease with San Gabriel Batting Cages, to build and operate a batting cage in San Gabriel Park. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment and the district court granted summary judgment for the City. We will affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The Walkers own and operate Shell Road Golf Center, Inc., a commercial driving range in Georgetown. According to the Walkers, from its initial planning and inception, the center was to include a batting cage facility. In December 1999, shortly after the Walkers began construction of a batting cage, the City signed a lease with San Gabriel Batting Cages Inc., a private entity, to build and operate a batting cage in San Gabriel Park, a public park owned by the City.

San Gabriel Park is primarily a baseball park, consisting of several baseball and softball fields. The lease covers 29,700 square feet of land, or according to the City’s figures, less than one percent of the 6,750,057 square foot park. The lease provides that San Gabriel Batting Cages will pay $400 a month to lease the property; that it will have the option to renew the lease after ten years; and that if the renewal option is exercised, the batting cage facility will become the property of the City upon termination of the lease. Any fees charged by the batting facility, as well as advertising and architectural decisions, must be approved by the director of parks and recreation. The City retains the right to terminate facility employees, to inspect the facility, and to approve any proposals to sublet the property. In addition, San Gabriel Batting Cages must maintain adequate insurance, provide safety instruction to its employees, and make available to the public annually one hundred free passes to the facility. The lease also provides that a concession stand may be built in conjunction with the batting cage.

Shortly after the City signed the lease with San Gabriel Batting Cages, the Walkers abandoned plans to build their batting cage because they believed that they could not compete with a “city-subsidized facility” located on “the best spot in town.” The Walkers contend that by entering into the lease with San Gabriel Batting Cages, the City failed to adhere to chapter 26 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code (requiring notice and hearing when change in use contemplated for public parkland); Texas Local Government Code sections 253.001 (requiring voter approval of sale of public parkland) and 272.001 (requiring notice and bidding for sale of public parkland); and article III, section 52 of the Texas Constitution (prohibiting municipalities from granting “public money or thing of value in aid of’ to individual, association, or corporation). See Tex. Const, art. Ill, § 52; Tex. Parks & Wild.Code Ann. §§ 26.001-004 (West 2002); Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code Ann. §§ 253.001, 272.001 (West Supp.2002). 1 The City concedes that it did *253 not adhere to these provisions, but that the provisions do not apply to a lease of parkland as opposed to the sale of parkland. The Walkers claim that they presented their concerns at numerous city council meetings before filing suit against the City.

In their lawsuit, the Walkers sought a declaratory judgment that the above provisions applied to the City’s lease of land within San Gabriel Park, as well as injunc-tive relief and damages. The City filed a motion for partial summary judgment asserting that the statutory provisions did not apply to it. The Walkers then filed a motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability to which the City filed a response. The district court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment. The order granting summary judgment contained a “Mother Hubbard” clause providing that “[a]ll relief not granted herein is DENIED.”

DISCUSSION

Jurisdiction

As a preliminary matter, we will address the City’s jurisdictional arguments that we lack appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s summary judgment because it was not a final judgment under Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191 (Tex.2001). We first turn to the matter of standing which was raised by the district court on its own motion.

Standing is an element of a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Texas Ass’n of Bus. v. Texas Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 444-45 (Tex.1993). As a general rule, to establish standing, a party must demonstrate some interest peculiar to it individually and not as a member of the general public. El Paso Cmty. Partners v. B&G/Sunrise Joint Ventures, 24 S.W.3d 620, 624 (Tex.App.-Austin 2000, no pet.). Specifically, a plaintiff has standing to sue if: (1) he has sustained, or is immediately in danger of sustaining, some direct injury as a result of the wrongful act of which he complains; (2) there is a direct relationship between the alleged injury and the claim to be adjudicated; (3) the plaintiff has a personal stake in the controversy; (4) the challenged action has caused the plaintiff some injury in fact, either economic, recreational, environmental, or otherwise; or (5) the plaintiff is an appropriate party to assert the public interest in the matter as well as his own interest. Id. In the instant case, the Walkers allege that they incurred $2,355.84 in start-up and construction expenses for the batting cages at the Shell Road facility. They argue that, as competitors of a facility unlawfully approved and subsidized by the City, they are suffering an injury peculiar to themselves. They assert that the project was no longer economically viable because they could not compete with a company that enjoyed the benefit of a lease of city property at below market rates. We conclude this constitutes a sufficiently particularized injury to confer standing to sue.

The City also argues that the district court’s grant of summary judgment was not final because it did not dispose of all issues and parties in the case. See Lehmann, 39 S.W.3d at 205. In support of this contention, the City points to the fact that both parties labeled their motions for summary judgments as partial motions for summary judgment and that the final summary judgment issued by the court contained a Mother Hubbard clause that did not expressly dispose of the Walkers’ constitutional claim against the City or their claim against George Russell, the city manager.

When there has been no conventional trial on the merits, as in the case of summary judgment, a judgment is not fi *254 nal for purposes of appeal unless it actually disposes of every pending claim and party. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
86 S.W.3d 249, 2002 Tex. App. LEXIS 5409, 2002 WL 1726912, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walker-v-city-of-georgetown-texapp-2002.