Lateral Support

In Sebastian Construction v. Chand, the Fifth Court of Appeals at Dallas reversed and rendered a take-nothing judgment against a general contractor after it had lost a $1 million judgment to neighboring landowners.

Sebastian Construction did work on property near a dam. The neighbors had a pond on the other side of the dam. The neighbors alleged that Sebastian’s work changed the natural support of the area, damaging their pond.

The Court applied Texas’s “doctrine of lateral support”—traditionally, a duty not to remove the support of adjoining land and thereby cause subsidence—and held that it did not apply to water migrating out of a pond, as opposed to water or debris migrating onto a plaintiff’s land. No. 05-25-00090-CV (Tex. App.—Dallas Aug. 25, 2026).