The state can’t take someone’s land, decide not to use it then claim governmental immunity once the former owner sues to repurchase the property, according to the Texas Supreme Court.
The high court’s June 12 opinion starts by stating that the right to own property is “fundamental, natural, inherent, inalienable, not derived from the legislature and… preexist(s) even constitutions.”
Justice Jane Bland wrote that the Texas Constitution grants the state the power to interfere with that right only for public uses, subject to providing adequate compensation to the landowner. When condemned property is unnecessary for public use, however, the former owner has a right to repurchase the property from the state.
In the case of Texas vs. JRK Pusok Holdings, the Supreme Court was tasked to decide whether the state may claim immunity when a landowner invokes that right.
“We conclude it cannot,” the opinion states. “Repurchase claims derive from constitutional limits placed on the State’s eminent domain power. The Legislature placed a repurchase right among provisions authorizing other suits for which the State lacks immunity. It granted trial courts the power to determine all issues arising under such claims, expressly including cases against the State.
“To the extent immunity exists, the Legislature has waived it for such claims in the circumstances it has prescribed.”
Property Code Chapter 21 sets forth the criteria a landowner must satisfy to allege a repurchase claim. The majority of justices found that the state has no immunity from Chapter 21 claims to repurchase condemned property no longer necessary for public use.
Justice Kyle Hawkins, joined by Chief Justice Blacklock and Justice Sullivan, disagreed, stating in their dissenting opinion that sovereign immunity exists for “good reason.”
“A private individual’s suit against the State is really a suit against all of us as taxpayers,” the opinion states. “Every dollar the government spends defending a lawsuit or paying a judgment to benefit one individual is a dollar that could have been spent on schools, roads, and public safety to benefit us all.”
Supreme Court case No. 24-0447
