Amicus Brief: Texas Courts Need Not Sit Idly By While Condemnor Dithers
Here's the recently-filed amici brief of the National Federation of Independent Business and the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, which urges the Texas Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals' Memorandum Opinion in City of Dallas v. Highway 205 Farms, Ltd., No. 05-13-00951-DV (July 22, 2014).
This case raises a jurisdictional issue that may be unique to Texas. That state's statutory eminent domain process has two distinct phases: the "administrative" stage, and the judicial proceeding. Although the condemnation process is instituted by filing a lawsuit in a county court and a lis pendens may be filed, the court's role is to appoint commissioners whose job is to hold a hearing and render an opinion on valuation. The so-called "judicial" phase only commences if a party is dissatisfied with the commissioners' opinion.
The commissioners in this case, however, took an extraordinarily long time to schedule a hearing, nearly a year and a half with no activity. The property owners asked the county court to dismiss the case for want of prosecution under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and the court's inherent authority. Four days after the motion to dismiss was filed, the commissioners finally got around to scheduling that hearing. But by then it was too late according to the county court, which dismissed the case without prejudice.
The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the case was still firmly in the "administrative" phase, which meant that the trial court did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the case, and could not exercise its power under the rules of civil procedure or with its inherent power to control its docket. "Only after a party files an objection to the commissioners’ award with the trial court does the judicial phase begin and the trial court obtain jurisdiction to hear and determine the issues in the exercise of its judicial powers." Slip op. at 3. During the administrative phase, the court's only power is to appoint the commissioners, receive their valuation opinion, and render a judgment based on any commissioners' award. This process is "completely separate" from any judicial proceeding. Slip op. at 4.
The property owners asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case, and filed a Petition for Writ of Mandamus (and at the same time filed a petition for review), seeking to compel the court of appeals to allow the county court to exercise jurisdiction. The petition frames the issue this way:
The appellate court held that a trial court has no authority to dismiss an eminent domain proceeding for want of prosecution, regardless of how long the proceeding has remained pending on the docket. Is it correct that a governmental entity can file and eminent domain proceeding and then leave it pending for years, decades, or centuries, without the landowner or trial court having any power to dismiss it?
The NFIB amici brief argues that there has to be some avenue for a property owner under the cloud of an affirmative taking to respond to foot-dragging by a condemnor -- the condemnor did file a lis pendens after all -- and courts have inherent authority to govern any proceedings on their dockets, even those labeled "administrative" --
Condemnation proceedings assume the shape of an ordinary civil case after a landowner objects to an administrative valuation. A judge’s authority in the administrative phase of a condemnation court is limited to issuing certain ministerial orders to facilitate that stage. But a judge’s authority during the administrative phase of a case isn’t circumscribed. That authority is the same as in any other civil case, and the judge retains the inherent, common-law authority to govern proceedings before the judge’s court. Whether a condemnation is in the “administrative” phase or the “trial” phase, it is still a proceeding pending before a court. In the absence of statutory language to the contrary, the court maintains the authority to dismiss that proceeding for want of prosecution — even during the administrative stage — when the condemnor stalls.
Brief at 12.
Now to those of us outside of Texas, it does seem odd indeed that a case that is on a court's docket doesn't at least give that court the power to do something if the case just sits there. What is more troubling if the Supreme Court affirms is that the commencement of the administrative process allows for the filing of a cloud on title -- the lis pendens -- but that it also does not allow for a court to supervise how long this cloud remains. It seems the only reason the commissioners got moving after 18 months was the property owner asking the court to dismiss.
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