Here’s a quick one from the Texas Supreme Court. Texas, Dep’t of Transportation v. A.P.I. Pipe and Supply, LLC , No. 10-1020 (Apr. 5, 2013) is an inverse condemnationut the issue isn’t really one of inverse condemnation, but who owns the property. If the City of Edinburg does, then TxDOT didn’t inversely condemn API’s property when it undertook a drainage project and removed soil from the parcel. If, as API claimed, it had title to the land, then TxDot was on the hook.
The issue was one of competing (and conflicting) recorded judgments from the same court, one year apart. The city condemned the parcel in 2003 from White, and the court entered a judgment vesting ownership of the parcel in “fee” to the city. The following year, however, the same court entered a “Judgment Nunc Pro Tunc” which “purported to render the 2003 Judgment ‘null and void,'” and which states that the city only owns a “right of way easement.” Both White’s and the city’s lawyers agreed to the new judgment. White later sold the surrounding property to API.
The Texas Supreme Court held that the second judgment was void, because you can’t correct a judicial error nunc pro tunc, only a clerical error. The court held that there was no evidence that the first judgment was a clerical error, because it was meant to reflect the trial court’s ruling that the city be awarded the fee. Besides, no one objected to a report of the special commissioners, who had recommended awarding a fee. Since the later judgment was void, the TxDOT was not liable for taking API’s property.
The court also rejected API’s innocent purchaser claim, holding that it did not qualify under the statute, which only protects unrecorded property conveyances. Here, the judgments were recorded, and “one cannot be ‘innocent’ of a recorded judgment.” Slip op. at 8 (emphasis original).