City of Houston v. Estate of Jones

SUPREME COURT CASES

Laws-info.com » Cases » Texas » Supreme Court » 2012 » City of Houston v. Estate of Jones

State: Texas

Court: Supreme Court

Docket No: 10-0755

Case Date: 12/21/2012

Plaintiff: City of Houston

Defendant: Estate of Jones

Preview:IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS
444444444444

NO . 10-0755
444444444444

THE CITY OF HOUSTON, PETITIONER,
v.

THE ESTATE OF KENNETH SAMUEL JONES, DECEASED, RESPONDENT
4444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

ON PETITION FOR REVIEW FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
4444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444

PER CURIAM

The City of Houston was sued and filed a plea to the jurisdiction. When its plea was denied, the City did not appeal. Several months later it filed an amended plea to the jurisdiction, then filed this interlocutory appeal from the denial of its amended plea. The court of appeals dismissed part of the appeal, but considered the merits of part of it. The issue presented is whether the court of appeals properly exercised jurisdiction over part of the appeal. We hold that because the amended plea was substantively the same as the earlier plea, the amended plea was a motion to reconsider the earlier plea and time had expired for interlocutory appeal from it. Accordingly, the court of appeals erred by failing to dismiss the entire appeal for lack of jurisdiction.1

Judgments of courts of appeals are ordinarily conclusive on interlocutory appeal, but we have jurisdiction to consider whether the court of appeals had interlocutory jurisdiction. Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. of Dallas v. Margulis, 11 S.W .3d 186, 187 (Tex. 2000) (per curiam).

1

The City of Houston issued a demolition permit to a neighbor of Kenneth S. Jones. While performing work under the permit the neighbor destroyed part of Jones's home. Jones sued the City and they eventually filed an agreed motion for continuance in which they stated they had resolved Jones's claim, but that implementation of the agreement had been delayed. Seven months later Jones amended his petition, omitted his original claims, and instead asserted that the City breached the settlement agreement. The City filed a plea to the jurisdiction. The trial court denied the plea and the court of appeals affirmed, holding that the "sue and be sued" language in the City charter waived the City's immunity from suit. City of Houston v. Jones, 2004 WL 1847965 (Tex. App.--Houston [1st Dist.] Aug. 19, 2004). This Court reversed, holding that the City charter language did not waive the City's immunity from suit. City of Houston v. Jones, 197 S.W.3d 391, 392 (Tex. 2006) (per curiam). We remanded the case to the trial court to give Jones the opportunity to argue that immunity was waived either under recently enacted sections of the Local Government Code or under the holding of Texas A & M University-Kingsville v. Lawson, 87 S.W.3d 518, 522-23 (Tex. 2002), where we addressed waivers of immunity for breach of a settlement agreement. Jones, 197 S.W.3d at 392. On remand the City filed another plea to the jurisdiction ("2006 plea"). In it the City argued that its immunity for breach of a settlement agreement was not waived under Lawson because its immunity from suit on the underlying claims had not been waived. It also argued that its immunity was not waived by Local Government Code section 271.152 because the settlement agreement was neither an agreement for providing goods or services to the City nor was it properly executed on behalf of the City as required by that section. See TEX . LOC. GOV 'T CODE

Download 10-0755.pdf