In Stegall v. TML Multistate Intergovernmental Employee Benefits Pool, Inc., the panel majority (Justice Pedersen writing, joined by Justice Whitehill) held that a serious medical-treatment claim about cancer treatment was barred by the sovereign immunity of  two parties:”TML . . . an intergovernmental self-insurance risk pool that operates under the Texas Interlocal Cooperation Act,” and UMR . . . one of TML’s third-party administrators.” It summarized: “This case presents an emotional and tragic scenario in which we are asked to ignore the  governmental immunity enjoyed by TML and UMR. However, this Court . . . must apply the law, and mandatory authority interpreting such law, to effectuate the Legislature’s intent.”

A dissent (Justice Partida-Kipness) saw the issue differently: “By creating and participating in the risk pool, TML performed a governmental function for which immunity applies.  The governmental nature of its actions, however, ended with that pooling. Stegall maintains that TML and UMR caused the wrongful death of her husband through improper claims adjustment procedures and decisions. . . . . Those actions are not governmental functions because they are decisions related to the adjusting of an individual insurance claim.” No. 05-18-00239-CV (Oct. 2, 2019) (mem. op.) (all emphasis added).

John Ellis, a former employee of DART, sued for discrimination and encountered a confoundingly complicated area of governmental-immunity law. The Fifth Court, concluding that “we are bound by controlling supreme court precedent in this area of perplexing legislative enactments,” held: “We cannot conclude in these circumstances that a waiver of governmental immunity is clear and unambiguous, as is required. Like the Norman [supreme court opinion], we view the law as ‘too internally inconsistent’ to meet that standard.” Ellis v. DART, No. 05-18-00521-CV (March 13, 2019).

Except for a claim based on a contract with D/FW Airport, as to which the Legislature had partially waived immunity, the Airport was otherwise immune from suit: “The parties agree that the Board hired Vizant to reduce the costs of collecting fees for processing credit card payments. The record shows that the Board collects those fees in connection with its operation of an airport, something it is expressly authorized by statute to do. he operation of an airport is expressly defined by statute as a governmental function that is exercised for a public purpose and is a matter of public necessity. And an airport is expressly designated by statute to be a nonproprietary function. A plaintiff may not split various aspects of a city’s operation into discrete functions and recharacterize certain of those functions as proprietary.” DFW Int’l Airport Board v. Vizant Technologies, No. 05-17-00090-CV (Dec. 15, 2017) (mem. op.) (citations omitted).

In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Munoz, the Dallas Court of Appeals for the second time considered whether sovereign immunity barred the plaintiff’s claims. At the interlocutory stage, the answer was “no.” After a trial on the merits, the Dallas Court of Appeals said “yes,” and judgment was rendered for the University.

The issue in the case was whether the University had sovereign immunity from a suit arising from an injury caused by an air handling unit. If the air handling unit was personal property, the Texas Legislature waived immunity under the Texas Tort Claims Act. If it was a fixture attached to real property, then there was no waiver and the suit was barred because the plaintiff was aware of the danger.

In the first interlocutory appeal, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that the air handling unit was personal property, and thus the trial court had jurisdiction because sovereign immunity was waived. The plaintiff argued on the appeal of the final judgment that this was the law of the case. It was, after all, the same air handling unit discussed in the opinion from the interlocutory appeal.

The Dallas Court of Appeals disagreed. Noting that “[i]f the record in one appeal on a plea to the jurisdiction differs from the record on a second appeal following trial, we review the evidence challenging the existence of jurisdictional facts.” The court held that it was logical to assume the facts were better developed by the time of trial, and so it would consider those better developed facts. After reviewing those facts, the Dallas Court of Appeals concluded that the air handling unit was actually a fixture and reversed the final judgment in favor of the plaintiff. So governmental entities, despair not if you lose your interlocutory appeal, because it may turn out that the court trying your case does not have jurisdiction after all.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Munoz

Last year, we reported on the Dallas Court of Appeals’ decision to affirm the trial court’s denial of the Office of Attorney General’s plea to the jurisdiction in a Whistleblower Act case. Today, the Texas Supreme Court has reversed and rendered, holding that the whistleblower’s report to her superior at OAG was not made to “an appropriate law enforcement authority,” as required by the Whistleblower Act. The plaintiff’s pleadings therefore failed to properly invoke the Act, meaning that OAG’s sovereign immunity was not waived.

Office of the Attorney Gen. v. Weatherspoon, No. 14-0582

After a bidding process, TXU entered into a contract with Fort Bend I.S.D. in 2010 to supply electricity for one year. The following year, the parties extended the contract period to 2014. But in 2012, the school district decided not to continue purchasing electricity because the extension has not been competitively procured as required by the Texas Education Code. TXU sued, but the trial court granted the school district’s plea to the jurisdiction based on governmental immunity. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Because the extension had not gone through a competitive bidding process, it was not “authorized by statute,” and therefore there was not waiver of governmental immunity under the Local Government Contract Claims Act.

TXU Energy Retail Co. L.L.C. v. Fort Bend Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 05-14-01515-CV

600 Commerce always has its eye out for trends in litigation, and a new one may now be emerging: a plague of boards falling off of government walls onto innocent members of the public. A year ago, it was a whiteboard falling off the wall of Dallas Metrocare Services (held: no sovereign immunity because plaintiff pleaded a dangerous “condition” of property with allegation of an improperly secured whiteboard). This time, the Court of Appeals sustained the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s sovereign immunity claim after a notice board fell on plaintiff Joseph McRae. The Court agreed with the Commission that McRae’s claim was one for premises defect, not for “negligent use or condition” of the notice board. Because it was in substance a premises defect claim, McRae was required to plead, and ultimately prove, that the Commission had actual knowledge of the condition that caused his injuries. But it was not clear that McRae would be unable to cure that defect in his pleading, so the Court remanded the matter to the trial court for further proceedings.

Texas Health & Human Servs. Comm’n v. McRae, No. 05-14-00894

The builder of a nursing facility sued the City of Kemp for breach of contract and con-tort claims, alleging that the city had failed to honor a tax abatement deal agreed upon before construction. The city promptly obtained dismissal of the case on grounds of governmental immunity. On appeal, the builder’s first issue claimed that “the concept of governmental immunity — even if not otherwise specifically waived — simply does not apply to the proprietary actions that form the basis of [the builder’s] claims.” The Court of Appeals disagreed. While a municipality is not immune from torts committed in the performance of “proprietary functions,” the assessment and collection of taxes is a quintessentially governmental function.

Douglas v. City of Kemp, Texas, No. 05-14-00475-CV

In 2000, the union representing DART’s employees sued DART, alleging that it was improperly denying its employees’ grievances and requests for appeals.  As a result, the parties entered into a settlement agreement providing that DART was required to modify the employee grievance procedures in its employment manual.

Years later, in 2010, a dispute arose between DART and a former employee (who had been terminated) over DART’s grievance procedures.  The union ultimately sued DART, alleging that it had breached the prior settlement agreement.  DART filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting sovereign immunity, which the trial court denied.  On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision, noting that when “a governmental entity agrees to settle a lawsuit in which it has waived governmental immunity, it cannot claim immunity from suit for breach of the settlement agreement.”  Because DART had waived immunity in the 2000 lawsuit and the union was claiming it had breached that agreement, DART could not claim immunity from the suit.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit v. Amalgamated Transit Union Local No. 1338

In what appears to be only the third opinion in the state reviewing a motion to dismiss under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 91a, the Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s order that granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss on the pleadings. Similar to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Rule 91a allows a party to move to dismiss a cause of action “on the grounds that it has no basis in law or fact,” based solely on the claimant’s pleadings. In this case, the plaintiffs sued the City of Dallas after emergency services failed to respond to a 911 call reporting their son’s drug overdose. The plaintiffs attempted to plead their way around governmental immunity by claiming the City had negligently used or misused the 911 system’s telephone and computer systems. The Court affirmed dismissal of negligence claims that the City had failed to properly respond to the 911 call, but also affirmed the denial of the motion as to claims that the equipment itself had failed or malfunctioned.

City of Dallas v. Sanchez, No. 05-13-01651-CV

Last November, the Texas Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further consideration in a case where the Dallas Court of Appeals had concluded that the plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded a waiver of sovereign immunity through the use of tangible property. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff had not alleged a “use” of property for a whiteboard that fell on his head, because Dallas Metrocare had only made the board available for use by patients. On remand, the Court of Appeals had to consider the alternative question of whether the plaintiff’s claims alleged injury through a “condition” of property. The Court concluded that he had pleaded such a claim, based on the allegation that the whiteboard was in an unsafe condition because it was not properly secured. The case was therefore remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

Dallas Metrocare Servs. v. Juarez, No. 05-11-01144-CV

In this whistleblower lawsuit, Ginger Weatherspoon alleged that the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) retaliated against her and ultimately terminated her employment after she reported that she was pressured to sign a false affidavit.   According to Ms. Weatherspoon, the affidavit was going to be used to support a judicial misconduct complaint against a district judge in Dallas (apparently, Judge David Hanschen).

The OAG sought to have Ms. Weatherspoon’s case dismissed based on sovereign immunity, and moved for summary judgment on that basis.  The Texas Government Code waives sovereign immunity for claims brought under the Texas Whistleblower Act, but, in order for a claim to fall within the purview of that statute, the alleged conduct must be reported to “an appropriate law enforcement authority.”  The OAG argued that Ms. Weatherspoon did not make her report to an appropriate law enforcement authority because she reported the alleged conduct only to her division head in the Child Support Division of the OAG.  The Court of Appeals disagreed, and upheld the trial court’s decision to deny the OAG’s Motion, because Ms. Weatherspoon’s division head was required to forward her report to the OAG’s Office of Special Investigations–an appropriate law enforcement authority.

Office of Attorney General v. Weatherspoon, No. 05-00632-CV

In this inverse condemnation action, the City of Dallas claimed that the case against it should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  The Court of Appeals held that fact issues precluded dismissal because the plaintiff had alleged, among other things, that the City has: (1) prevented him from developing his property in order to reduce the City’s cost of acquiring that property in the future; (2) closed a street near his property, potentially reducing the plaintiff’s investment-backed expectation; and (3) refused to act on plaintiff’s application to build a privately funded bridge to connect to his property.

City of Dallas v. Millwee-Jackson JV

A Dallas doctor brought lawsuits against UT Southwestern and Parkland Hospital, alleging that they retaliated against him after he raised concerns that some of their billing practices were running afoul of Medicaid laws.  The trial court granted the defendants’ plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed both lawsuits on the basis of sovereign immunity. In affirming, the Court of Appeals rejected the doctor’s argument that the defendants had waived sovereign immunity, and held that a state entity cannot waive sovereign immunity by its conduct.  The Court specifically noted that “the Texas Supreme Court has never ruled that a doctrine of waiver of sovereign immunity by conduct exists.”

Gentilello v. UTSW, 05-13-00149-CV

Gentilello v. DCHD, 05-13-00150-CV

In KingVision Pay-Per-View, Ltd. v. Dallas County, the Court affirmed the county’s plea to the jurisdiction because a statute only authorized suit against a constable and his sureties for failing to execute on the plaintiff’s judgment.  And in City of Sachse v. Wood, the Court reversed the trial court’s denial of a plea to the jurisdiction, holding that the plaintiff had failed to establish a violation of the Whistleblower Act because the he reported the alleged misconduct to fire department personnel, not an “appropriate law enforcement authority.”

In this whistleblower suit against Dallas County, the County filed a plea to the jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity.  The plaintiff, a former deputy constable, complained of illegal activity and retaliation in his employment division to the Dallas County Commissions Court.  The County contended, however, that this entity does not fall within the confines of the Whistleblower Act and, therefore, the plaintiff did not have an objective good faith belief that he was reporting the misdeeds to an appropriate law enforcement body.  While the Court found that “an appropriate law enforcement authority must be actually responsible for regulating under or enforcing the law allegedly violated,” it nevertheless remanded the proceedings to the trial court because the record did not show that evidence was presented about the plaintiff’s good faith belief that the Commissioners Court was the appropriate body.  This was particularly true given that some of the County’s jurisdictional arguments were newly raised on appeal.

Dallas County v. Logan

Kimberly Ball-Lowder brought suit against Pegasus for wrongful discharge under the Texas Whistleblower Protection Act.  Pegasus filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting that Ball-Lowder’s claims must be dismissed because the Whistleblower Protection Act is not applicable to a Texas open-enrollment charter school.  The Court held that the Act applies to an open-enrollment charter school, and affirmed the trial court’s order denying the plea to the jurisdiction.  Government immunity is waived for a “local government entity” respecting claims under the Act.  The Court concluded that the Whistleblower Protection Act’s definition of “local government entity” must be interpreted to include an open-enrollment charter school to be consistent with the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in LTTS Charter School, Inc. v. C2 Construction III, 342 S.W.3d 73 (Tex. 2011).

Pegasus School v. Kimberly Ball-Lowder

Last year, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff had properly alleged a waiver of sovereign immunity for a government body’s use or condition of tangible personal property, based on the allegation that an improperly secured whiteboard had fallen on the plaintiff. Dallas Metrocare Services v. Juarez, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. App.–Dallas 2012). The Texas Supreme Court has now reversed that decision, citing its more recent decision in Rusk State Hospital v. Black, 392 S.W.3d 88 (Tex. 2012), for the proposition that the Court of Appeals should have considered Metrocare’s argument on appeal — not raised before the trial court — that the injury did not arise from the “condition” of the property. The Supreme Court also held that there was no waiver of immunity by Metrocare’s “use” of the whiteboard, since it had simply made the board available for use by patients. The case will now be remanded to the Court of Appeals for further consideration.

Dallas Metrocare Services v. Juarez, No. 12-0685

Several landowners entered into an easement agreement with the City of Celina so the City could build a sewer to a local high school.  Among other things, the City agreed to replace the top soil along the easement after the sewer was installed.  When the original top soil was not replaced, the landowners sued for inverse condemnation.  The Court of Appeals found that the agreement’s top soil provision was not intended to act as a condition subsequent.  Because the takings claim was based on the landowners assertion that breach of a condition subsequent voided the easement, the Court found that the trial court erred in denying the City’s plea to the jurisdiction.

City of Celina v. Dickerson

According to the operators of Hank’s Texas Grill, the City of McKinney and its police officers have been wrongfully harassing the restaurant, its employees, and its customers for the last ten years. In response, the city alleges that Hank’s violates numerous city ordinances. The city filed a plea to the jurisdiction to invoke its governmental immunity. The trial court denied the plea, and the city appealed. Summarizing the recent (and conflicting) string of cases challenging local ordinances, the Court of Appeals concluded that “the Declaratory Judgments Act waives governmental immunity against claims that a statute or ordinance is invalid,” but “does not waive a governmental entity’s immunity against a claim that government actors have violated the law.” Construing Hank’s pleadings, the Court concluded that they did not demonstrate that Hank’s claim was outside the scope of the city’s governmental immunity. However, the pleading also did not demonstrate that the claim was barred by governmental immunity, meaning that Hank’s had to be given the opportunity to amend. The Court also affirmed the trial court’s ruling that Hank’s claim for damages was not barred by immunity to the extent that it was an offset against the city’s own damage claims. Finally, the Court of Appeals rejected the city’s claim that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enjoin its enforcement of state laws and local ordinances, ruling that the pleadings and arguments at this stage of the case were still too unclear to affirmatively demonstrate that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to issue an injunction.

City of McKinney v. Hank’s Restaurant Group, L.P., No. 05-123-01359-CV

Back in 2004, the State of Texas filed an animal cruelty proceeding against Marsha Chambers, who was apparently breeding the dogs for sale. The jury found that the animals had been treated cruelly, and the justice court transferred their ownership to the Dallas SPCA. Chambers has spent the years since then futilely pursuing collateral litigation challenging the justice court’s order. In March 2012, that quest led to the filing of a suit alleging a constitutional taking of the animals, seeking $575,000 in damages for the value of the animals and lost income. The State filed a plea to the jurisdiction, which was granted by the trial court and affirmed by the Court of Appeals. According to the Court of Appeals, Chambers had failed to plead a claim capable of evading the State’s sovereign immunity, because she had not adequately pleaded that the alleged taking had been made for a “public purpose.” Seizing neglected or mistreated animals serves to protect the welfare of the animals, not to confer a benefit on the public. Because the pleading did not establish a constitutional takings claim, the trial court properly dismissed the case, and that judgment was affirmed.

Chambers v. State, No. 05-12-01178-CV

Since 1994, the City of Dallas has been in litigation with its police, firefighters, and rescue officers. The question at hand is whether a referendum and ordinance passed in 1979 amounted to a one-time salary adjustment, as the city contends, or a perpetual entitlement in all future salary adjustments. More than a decade after the lawsuits started, the city suddenly remembered that it had governmental immunity, and filed pleas to the jurisdiction on that basis. In 2011, the Texas Supreme Court held that the officers could not pursue a declaratory judgment on their interpretation of the ordinance because the only potential relief from such a declaration would be an award of money damages. City of Dallas v. Albert, 354 S.W.3d 368 (Tex. 2011). In the meantime, however, the legislature had enacted a new, retroactive statute that waived local governments’ immunity from suit for certain breach of contract claims. See Tex. Local Gov’t Code § 271.151 et seq. The case was therefore remanded to the trial court to consider whether there was jurisdiction to hear the officers’ breach of contract claims. The trial court denied the city’s renewed pleas to the jurisdiction, ruling that the contract claims fell within the new statutory waiver of immunity. On interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed.

The analysis is somewhat lengthy, but its core relies on City of Houston v. Williams, 353 S.W.3d 128 (Tex. 2006) for the proposition that city ordinances can create a unilateral contract between the city and its employees that is within the scope of the legislature’s waiver of governmental immunity. Finding all of the elements of such a contract contained within the 1979 ordinance, the Court of Appeals concluded that it was a unilateral contract between the city and the officers. However, on the key question of whose interpretation of the ordinance would prevail, the court deferred to one of its previous rulings in the case, holding that the ordinance was ambiguous and its interpretation was therefore a question of fact to be determined at trial. The court also held there was no jurisdiction on the remaining declaratory judgment claims, concluding that the Albert decision had already established the city was entitled to governmental immunity from such claims.

City of Dallas v. Arredondo, No. 05-12-00963-CV

The court affirmed a denial of the Dallas County Hospital District’s plea to the jurisdiction requesting dismissal of a breach of contract claim on the basis of governmental immunity, but reversed the decision with regards to a quantum meruit claim. The District entered into a written lease and purchase contract with Hospira for certain medical equipment and supplies. Several months after the end of the lease term, Hospira invoiced the District for the remaining amounts due under the lease. After unsuccessful attempts to recover the shortfall, Hospira sued the District asserting that immunity from suit had been waived by section 271.152 of the local government code. The District argued that its immunity from suit had not been waived under section 271.152 because it was not a local government entity as defined in section 271.151. The trial court denied the District’s plea to the jurisdiction, and the District filed an interlocutory appeal.

On appeal, the court noted that section 271.152 waives governmental immunity from suit for breach of contract claims against local governmental entities, defined as “a political subdivision of this state, other than a county or a unit of state government” and including a “special-purpose district.” The District contended that it is excluded from this definition because it is a “unit of state government” pursuant to the government code, but that code specifically excludes special purpose districts from the definition. Thus, the District could not assert immunity from the breach of contract claim. The court also held, however, that section 271.152 did not waive immunity from suit for Hopsira’s alternative claim based on quantum meruit. The statute expressly applied only to breach of contract.

Dallas County Hospital District v. Hospira Worldwide, Inc., No. 05-12-00902-CV

The Dallas City Code contains certain provisions governing the activities of “Alternative Financial Establishments.”  Under this section of the code, these establishments are defined to include “car title loan business[es], check cashing business[es], or money transfer business[es]” but not businesses that “provide financial  services that are accessory to another main use.”  Last year, the City informed Texas EZPAWN that its loan service business qualified as an alternative financial establishment under the code.  EZPAWN disagreed and filed a lawsuit seeking a declaration that its loan services business did not fall within the code’s definition.  The City filed a plea to the jurisdiction, arguing that governmental immunity barred EZPAWN’s suit and that the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act did not apply because the governmental immunity waiver in that ordinance only applies to suits challenging the validity of a ordinance whereas EZPAWN’s suit merely seeks a construction or interpretation of the ordinance.   The Court of Appeals agreed with the City, finding that the UDJA does not waive the City’s governmental immunity because EZPAWN did not seek to invalidate the provision.  It therefore reversed the trial court’s judgment and dismissed the petition with prejudice.

City of Dallas v Texas EZPawn

Richardson Hospital Authority (“RHA”) hired Plaintiff, Placidus Duru, as a nursing assistant.  But when Duru was indicted for sexually abusing a patient, the hospital terminated him.  Four years later, when the prosecution dismissed the criminal case against Duru, he turned around and sued RHA for malicious prosecution, business disparagement, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.  RHA moved to dismiss these claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, but the trial court denied their motion for all claims except malicious prosecution.  The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision to dismiss the business disparagement, breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims (the malicious prosecution claim’s dismissal was not appealed), finding that the Texas Tort Claims Act did not waive the sovereign immunity enjoyed by RHA, a public institution, because Duru’s pleadings “affirmatively negate jurisdiction.”

Richardson Hospital Authority v. Placidus Duru, No. 05-12-00165-CV

Delcom Group, LP thought that it was the winning bidder for a project to install “Digital Classroom integration solutions with technology components including installation and service at multiple school facilities” in the Dallas Independent School District.  But when DISD dumped Delcom and went with the second-place bidder instead, Delcom sued both the school district and the competing bidder.  The trial court granted a temporary restraining order to prevent DISD and the competitor from using Delcom’s trade secrets, but ultimately denied a temporary injunction and granted the school district’s plea to the jurisdiction.  On interlocutory appeal from that ruling, the court of appeals affirmed.  Despite a chain of documents that Delcom pointed to as forming the contract, the court held that the contractor could not sue DISD for breach because the parties had never settled on the essential terms of a contract.  Among other problems, Delcom had actually submitted two different bids, one for $79 million and the other for $62 million — and DISD had never stated which bid it intended to accept.  Because the parties had not agreed on the essential terms of a contract, there could be no waiver of governmental immunity under section 271.152 of the Local Government Code.  The court likewise rejected Delcom’s takings claim, because there could be no taking when Delcom had given its alleged trade secrets to the school district voluntarily.  Finally, the panel affirmed the trial court’s denial of the temporary injunction, holding that Delcom had not established any imminent and irreparable injury through use of its trade secrets, nor had it shown it could not be compensated with money damages if any actual misappropriation were to occur.

Delcom Group, LP v. Dallas Independent School District, No. 05-11-01259-CV

The court also issued a memorandum opinion in another governmental immunity case.  In this instance, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of a plea to the jurisdiction, concluding that the plaintiff had properly alleged a waiver of sovereign immunity based on the government body’s use or condition of tangible personal property – namely, the 4×8-foot, improperly secured whiteboard that had fallen on the plaintiff’s head.

Dallas Metrocare Services v. Juarez, No. 05-11-01144-CV

In a governmental immunity case, the court has sustained a plea to the jurisdiction asserted by the City of Dallas in response to a slip-and-fall case.  The plaintiff alleged she had fallen while trying to open a locked door that had a puddle of fallen rainwater in front of it.  The City filed an interlocutory appeal after the trial court denied its plea to the jurisdiction.  The court of appeals reversed and rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiff’s claims, concluding that (1) the plaintiff had failed to raise a fact issue showing the City had knowledge of the allegedly dangerous condition, and (2) a plaintiff injured by a premises defect on governmental property can only assert a premises defect claim under the Texas Tort Claims Act, not a claim for general negligence.  Without an express waiver of governmental immunity under the TTCA, the court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

City of Dallas v. Prado, No. 05-11-01598-CV