Subject Matter Jurisdiction Matters

In Texas Right to Life v. Van Stean, the Texas Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling that the TCPA did not apply to a particular case, remanding for consideration of the threshold issue of subject matter jurisdiction (here, the plaintiffs’ standing). Two notes:

• The defendants had filed a plea to the jurisdiction. Because they were not governmental entites, they had no statutory right of interlocutory appeal from the denial of that plea. That said: “[J]urisdiction must be addressed in a properly filed interlocutory appeal, regardless of the order appealed. Thus, the act that [defendants] could formally appeal only the order denying its TCPA motion was no bar to the court of appeals’ determining whether the plaintiffs had standing.” citation omitted).
• This case did not address the topic analyzed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574 (1999)l ,which reminded: “Customarily, a federal court first resolves doubts about its jurisdiction over the subject matter, but there are circumstances in which a district court appropriately accords priority to a personal jurisdiction inquiry.”