Affirmed and Memorandum Opinion filed April 2, 2020.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

NO. 14-18-00473-CV

SGG, LLC; STORM GUARDIAN GENERATORS, LP; AND RONNIE 

BOEGLER II, Appellants

V.

JARED PORCHE, Appellee

On Appeal from the 239th District Court

Brazoria County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 77007-CV

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellants, SGG, LLC, Storm Guardian Generators, LP, and Ronnie 

Boegler II, appeal from a final judgment signed following a jury trial. Appellants’

sole argument on appeal argues the trial court’s judgment is void and must be 

vacated because the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction over

appellee Jared Porche’s causes of action. Because we conclude that the trial court 

had subject-matter jurisdiction, we overrule appellants’ issue and affirm the trial 
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court’s judgment.

BACKGROUND

This appeal is the culmination of a long-running dispute between the parties. 

Because appellants do not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the 

trial court’s judgment, we include only the background facts necessary to

understand appellants’ arguments and to apprise the parties of our decision and the 

reasons for that decision.

In 2011, appellants obtained a $76,000 judgment (underlying judgment) 

against Porche for attorneys’ fees incurred in a lawsuit initiated by Porche. As part 

of their effort to collect on the underlying judgment, appellants obtained a turnover 

order requiring Porche to turn over to them his 33.9 percent partnership interest in

Storm Guardian Generators in partial satisfaction of the underlying judgment. The 

2012 turnover order does not include a determination of the value of Porche’s 33.9

percent interest. The order also awarded $1,500 in attorneys’ fees to appellants.

The trial court’s plenary power over the underlying judgment had expired by the 

time it signed the turnover order. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 329b(d); Lane Bank Equip. 

Co. v. Smith S. Equip., Inc., 10 S.W.3d 308, 310 (Tex. 2000).

In 2014, Porche filed a lawsuit against appellants in district court asserting 

several causes of action, all related to the underlying judgment and subsequent 

turnover order. Porche alleged the following claims: (1) a request for a valuation 

of his former partnership interest in Storm Guardians Generators; (2) a request for 

reimbursement of any overpayment that may have occurred on the underlying

judgment as a result of the turnover of his former partnership interest; (3) 

constructive fraud as a result of appellants not returning the excess left after the 

underlying judgment was paid; (4) breach of fiduciary duty as a result of appellants 

not returning the excess payment left after the underlying judgment was paid; (5)
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strict liability for loss of custodial property; (6) a suit for an accounting; (7) a 

request to set aside fraudulent transfers; and (8) a request to set aside the turnover 

order.

Appellants filed an answer to the lawsuit in which they pled res judicata and 

collateral estoppel as affirmative defenses. Their answer also included a plea to 

the jurisdiction asserting that the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction 

because the alleged errors in the turnover order at issue in Porche’s lawsuit should 

have been corrected on a direct appeal from the trial court’s entry of the order. 

Appellants also included their plea to the jurisdiction in a no-evidence motion for 

summary judgment, which the trial court denied. 

The case was eventually submitted to a jury. The jury was asked to 

determine the fair market value of a 33.9 percent interest in Storm Guardian

Generators on a specified date.

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 The jury answered $123,000. The trial court then 

awarded $45,500 to Porche. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

Appellants raise a single issue on appeal arguing that the trial court did not 

have subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims Porche alleged in his lawsuit. In 

appellants’ view, Porche’s lawsuit challenges the “evidentiary underpinnings” of 

the turnover order, constitutes a collateral attack on the turnover order, and his 

complaints should have been addressed through a direct appeal. Appellants 

continue that because Porche did not appeal the turnover order, the trial court was 

without subject-matter jurisdiction to grant the relief Porche requested in his 

lawsuit.

Subject-matter jurisdiction concerns a court’s “authority to adjudicate the 

1 The jury charge is not included in the appellate record. The trial court’s final judgment 

quotes “Question No. 1” of the charge.
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type of controversy involved in the action.” Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12 

S.W.3d 71, 74–75 (Tex. 2000). “A judgment rendered without subject-matter 

jurisdiction is void and subject to collateral attack.” Engelman Irrigation Dist. v. 

Shields Bros., Inc., 514 S.W.3d 746, 750 (Tex. 2017). The right of a plaintiff to 

maintain a suit on the other hand, concerns the right of the plaintiff to the relief he 

seeks, but it does not concern the jurisdiction of the court to afford the relief 

sought. Dubai Petroleum Co., 12 S.W.3d at 76–77. Whether subject-matter 

jurisdiction exists is a question of law that we review de novo. City of Houston v. 

Rhule, 417 S.W.3d 440, 442 (Tex. 2013) (per curiam).

Texas district courts are courts of general jurisdiction. Dubai Petrol. Co., 12 

S.W.3d at 75. A district court’s jurisdiction “consists of exclusive, appellate, and 

original jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and remedies, except in cases

where exclusive, appellate, and original jurisdiction may be conferred by this 

Constitution or other law on some other court, tribunal, or administrative body.”

Tex. Const. art. V, § 8; see also Tex. Gov’t Code § 24.007 (granting jurisdiction to 

district courts as provided in article V, section 8 of Texas Constitution). A district 

court may hear any case “that is cognizable by courts of law or equity and may 

grant any relief that could be granted by either courts of law or equity.” Tex. 

Gov’t Code § 24.008. Courts of general jurisdiction are presumed to have subjectmatter jurisdiction unless lawmakers mandate they be heard elsewhere. Dubai 

Petroleum Co., 12 S.W.3d at 75; see Sumner v. Bd. of Adjustment of the City of 

Spring Valley Village, No. 14-15-00149-CV, 2016 WL 2935881, at *8 (Tex. 

App.—Houston [14th Dist.] May 17, 2016, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (“Although 

district courts typically are courts of general jurisdiction, the Legislature has vested 

exclusive jurisdiction over inverse condemnation claims in the Harris County 

Courts at Law.”).
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We begin with Porche’s causes of action asserted in his lawsuit, which are 

set out above. See Cty. of Cameron v. Brown, 80 S.W.3d 549, 555 (Tex. 2002) 

(when deciding a plea to the jurisdiction, we consider only the plaintiff’s pleadings 

and the evidence pertinent to the jurisdictional inquiry). We conclude that each of 

these claims fit within the general jurisdiction of Texas district courts. Tex. Gov’t 

Code §§ 24.007; 24.008. Appellants have not pointed out any statute or 

constitutional provision that has assigned exclusive jurisdiction to hear any of 

Porche’s causes of action to another court or a state agency. Dubai Petroleum Co., 

12 S.W.3d at 75 (stating there is a presumption that courts of general jurisdiction

“have subject matter jurisdiction unless a showing can be made to the contrary”). 

As a result, we conclude that they have not shown the trial court lacked subjectmatter jurisdiction over Porche’s claims. See Partain v. Maples, 438 S.W.3d 69, 

73 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 2013, no pet.) (holding judgment debtor could not 

use turnover order issued outside trial court’s plenary power to obtain

reimbursement for overpayment of underlying judgment but was instead “required

to seek reimbursement for the overpayment on the judgment in a separate suit.”); 

Woody K. Lesikar Special Trust v. Moon, No. 14-10-00119-CV, 2011 WL 

3447491, at *6 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Aug. 9, 2011, pet. denied) 

(stating that merits of a reimbursement claim are not the proper subject of a 

turnover proceeding).

The caselaw appellants cite does not change this result. Appellants

primarily rely on two cases in support of their argument that Porche’s lawsuit is a 

prohibited collateral attack on the trial court’s turnover order. In the first case, In 

re Wiese, the relator sought a writ of habeas corpus in connection with a contempt

order signed after she failed to comply with a turnover order requiring her to turn 

over all sums received from the sale of merchandise in any of her businesses until 
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the underlying debt was paid. 1 S.W.3d 246, 248 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi

1999, orig. proceeding). The relator argued the turnover over was void and 

unenforceable by contempt because it did not allow for the deduction of reasonable 

and necessary expenses before her business receipts were turned over to the court. 

Id. at 249. The court of appeals rejected this argument stating that “the fact the 

turnover order is contrary to a statute or contains errors only makes the judgment 

‘voidable’ and does not give a party the right to circumvent ordinary appellate or 

other direct procedures to correct it.” Id. at 250–51. The court then concluded that 

because the “relator has failed to directly attack the turnover order,” it was 

“without jurisdiction to grant habeas relief based upon an order that is merely 

voidable and not void.” Id.

In the second case, Davis v. West, 317 S.W.3d 301, 308 (Tex. App.—

Houston [1st Dist.] 2009, no pet.), Davis challenged the “validity of a turnover 

order.” She argued that the turnover order was invalid due to evidentiary

deficiencies in the proof supporting the order and also because the order did “not 

specify the dollar amount of the underlying judgment.” Id. at 309. The court of 

appeals construed Davis’s arguments “as a collateral attack on the turnover order.” 

Id. The court then held that 

even if the turnover order in this case failed to include the amount of 

the underlying judgment to be satisfied, required Davis to turnover 

exempt property or contained other requirements in contravention of 

the turnover statute, the order would be voidable —not void—and it 

must therefore have been the subject of a direct attack. Davis cannot 

use these alleged deficiencies to defeat [the receiver’s] derived 

judicial immunity or to hold [the receiver] or the Bank liable for 

actions taken in reliance upon the turnover order when she failed to 

timely prosecute a direct appeal of the turnover order or seek

injunctive or mandamus relief prohibiting the execution of the 

turnover order.

Id. at 310 (internal citation omitted).
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We conclude that both cases cited by appellants are distinguishable because

Porche’s lawsuit is not a collateral attack on the turnover order. Unlike the relator 

in In re in Wiese and the judgment debtor in Davis, Porche did not argue that the 

turnover order was void. Porche also did not challenge the amount of the 

underlying judgment. See Lesikar v. Rappeport, 104 S.W.3d 310, 315 (Tex. 

App.—Texarkana 2002, pet. denied) (“Any attempt by the Lesikars now to claim 

an enlarged ownership interest in those funds would constitute a redetermination of 

matters that were actually litigated in the underlying lawsuit.”). Porche instead 

sought, through a separate lawsuit, a valuation of his partnership interest and a 

reimbursement of any overpayment that may have occurred as a result of the

turnover order. The trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to hear and 

adjudicate that controversy. See id. at 316 (“Therefore, while Rappeport is entitled 

to a turnover order in this case, the Lesikars should not have been precluded by the 

trial court from seeking relief elsewhere for any reimbursement claim based on an 

alleged overpayment of the Money Judgment.”).

Rather than challenging the trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, we 

conclude appellants’ complaints on appeal instead attack Porche’s right to the 

relief he sought through his lawsuit. See Dubai Petroleum Co., 12 S.W.3d at 76–

77 (“Thus, while defendants in this Court and the Kazis in the court of appeals

framed their argument in terms of whether the district court did or did not have 

subject-matter jurisdiction, we consider those arguments in the context of whether

the Kazis established their right under the statute to go forward with this suit. The 

right of a plaintiff to maintain a suit, while frequently treated as going to the 

question of jurisdiction, has been said to go in reality to the right of the plaintiff to 

relief rather than to the jurisdiction of the court to afford it.”) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Appellants recognized this when they alleged Porche’s claims 
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were barred by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. For res 

judicata to apply, a party must establish the following elements: (1) a prior final 

judgment on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) identity of the 

parties or those in privity with them; and (3) a second action based on the same 

claims that were raised or could have been raised in the first action. Travelers Ins.

Co. v. Joachim, 315 S.W.3d 860, 862 (Tex. 2010). Collateral estoppel, also known 

as issue preclusion, prevents a party from relitigating an issue it previously 

litigated unsuccessfully. Calabrian Corp. v. Alliance Specialty Chems., Inc., 418 

S.W.3d 154, 158 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2013, no pet.). Both res

judicata and collateral estoppel are affirmative defenses and the party asserting 

them has the burden of pleading and proving them. While both doctrines may 

prevent a particular plaintiff from recovering on a specific cause of action, neither 

impacts a trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. See Zermeno v. Garcia, No. 14-

17-00843-CV, 2019 WL 2063090, at *3 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] May 9, 

2019, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (“In an apparent effort to avoid the errorpreservation requirements of Rule 33.1, Gloria’s first argument regarding subjectmatter jurisdiction conflates the defenses of release or res judicata with the 

separate and distinct concept of subject-matter jurisdiction.”); Mestiza v. De Leon, 

8 S.W.3d 770, 773 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1999, no pet.) (“Res judicata and 

collateral estoppel are affirmative defenses under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 94 

and should be treated as a plea in bar, rather than as a plea in abatement or a plea to 

the jurisdiction.”). Because appellants have not shown that the trial court lacked 

subject-matter jurisdiction, we overrule their single issue on appeal.
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CONCLUSION 

Having overruled appellants’ sole issue on appeal, we affirm the trial court’s 

judgment.

/s/ Jerry Zimmerer

Justice

Panel consists of Justices Christopher, Bourliot, and Zimmerer.