Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of June 16, 2014

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Northwest ISD v. Carroll ISD, No. 02-10-00105-CV (June 19, 2014)(en banc reconsideration) (Livingston, C.J., joined by McCoy and Meier, JJ.; Dauphinot, J., concurs and dissents; Gardner, J., concurs and dissents, joined by Walker and Gabriel, JJ.).

Held: The trial court did not err by denying appellant Northwest ISD’s plea to the jurisdiction to the extent that, in the underlying suit, Carroll ISD is seeking a declaratory judgment regarding any latent ambiguity in the orders and judgments describing the common boundary line between the two districts. However, the trial court erred by denying Northwest ISD’s plea to the jurisdiction to the extent that Carroll ISD is seeking to move the existing boundary by challenging the 1948 and 1949 elections and corresponding orders creating Northwest ISD and its boundaries.

Justice Dauphinot's Concurrence and Dissent: The majority correctly holds that the trial court has no jurisdiction to move the current boundary line between the two school districts. But the issue on which majority remands the case-the determination of the boundary line that the two school districts have always recognized-is one that Carroll ISD did not plead and about which no dispute has been alleged.

Justice Gardner's Concurrence and Dissent: Carroll ISD does not seek to move the existing boundary by challenging the 1948 and 1949 elections and the orders creating Northwest ISD and its boundaries. Thus, the trial court did not err by denying Northwest ISD's plea to the jurisdiction.

Parker Cnty. Appraisal Dist. v. Francis, No. 02-13-00182-CV (June 19, 2014) (Walker, J., joined by Dauphinot and McCoy, JJ.)

Held: Applying a de novo standard of review to determine whether the trial court correctly applied the law to the stipulated facts, relying on the plain meaning of the tax code provisions set forth and discussed in the opinion, presuming that the legislature selected the language in these tax code provisions with care and that every word or phrase was used with a purpose in mind, and reading the tax code as a whole, we hold that based on the stipulated facts before us, Francis's three-acre tract of real property qualified for both the residence homestead exemption and the open-space land valuation for the years 2010 and 2011.

Lundgren v. State,  No. 02-12-00285-CR (June 19, 2014) (Dauphinot, J., joined by Walker, J.; Gabriel, J., concurs without opinion).

Held: The Wise County offense of driving while intoxicated (DWI) was not a final conviction when the instant DWI occurred and therefore could not be used to enhance the instant Tarrant County DWI to a felony.

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