Supreme Court of Texas

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No. 20-0393

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James Fredrick Miles,

Petitioner,

v.

Texas Central Railroad & Infrastructure, Inc. and 

Integrated Texas Logistics, Inc., 

Respondents

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On Petition for Review from the

Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District of Texas

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JUSTICE YOUNG, concurring.

Eminent-domain power has repeatedly been called one of the 

most “awesome” powers of government.1 “Scary” is another fitting term. 

The very words eminent domain and condemnation sound foreboding, 

and they should. They represent the sovereign’s power to unilaterally 

strip individuals of property rights—rights that may have been gained 

at great cost. Condemnation is an extraordinary intrusion that often 

1 See, e.g., State by Comm’r of Transp. v. Elbert, 942 N.W.2d 182, 188 

(Minn. 2020); Township of West Orange v. 769 Assocs., LLC, 969 A.2d 1080, 

1085 (N.J. 2009). 
2

destroys homes, scars farmland that generations have cultivated, 

disrupts thriving businesses, and far more. It is an act of force by the 

government that uneasily coexists with the strong protection of individual

property rights that Texas law guarantees. We have described “the 

fundamental right of property” as being “among the most important 

[rights] in Texas law.” S.C. v. M.B., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2022 WL 2192167, 

at *15 (Tex. June 17, 2022).

2

On occasion, to serve a public purpose, a citizen’s private property

must be taken without his consent. We tolerate such intrusions because 

society cannot function without roads, schools, military facilities, and 

other vital infrastructure. Eminent domain also requires “just” or 

“adequate” compensation, to be sure. U.S. Const. amend. V; Tex. Const. 

art. I, § 17(a). But the condemnation process is complicated, timeconsuming, and sometimes confusing.3 And no compensation can 

2 As Justice Devine’s eloquent dissent puts it—and I agree—“[t]his 

Court has long recognized that strong judicial protection of individual property 

rights is essential to freedom itself.” Post at 2 (Devine, J., dissenting); accord 

post at 4 (Huddle, J., dissenting).

3 Chapter 21 of the Property Code is devoted to the complexities of 

eminent-domain practice. The condemnation process may take years, and a Texas

property owner generally has no right to seek attorney’s fees or compensation 

for her time. Just one example of the various intricacies that can entrap an 

unwary property owner is how Texas law resolves disagreements about the 

property’s value. If the condemnor and the property owner cannot reach an 

agreement, the condemnor sues the property owner. Id. § 21.012. The property 

owner must affirmatively defend her right to compensation. She waives her 

right to have a judge (or jury) determine the amount of compensation if she does

not quickly file specific objections to the results of an administrative process. 

Id. § 21.018; see also, e.g., John v. State, 826 S.W.2d 138, 141 n.5 (Tex. 1992) 

(noting that, unless objections are timely filed, the court may only perform the 

ministerial function of rendering judgment on the administrative process’s 

property valuation).
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accurately value the sweat, tears, pride, love, beauty, and history that, 

for some property at least, is its chief value. A given exercise of eminent 

domain may turn out to be all for nothing, too. Grand plans can fail. 

Property may therefore be permanently damaged without purpose.

4

These circumstances help explain why our law directs Texas 

courts to carefully scrutinize any exercise of eminent-domain authority. 

Condemnation is one area in which the government must turn sharp 

corners. It is a fit role for the judiciary to ensure that the government 

stays in its lane. 

How much harder it is, then, when a private entity is the one 

wielding the power of eminent domain—without direct governmental 

oversight or the backing of the public fisc. Such a situation can only 

heighten the need for judicial vigilance. On these points I readily agree 

with my dissenting colleagues. See, e.g., post at 3–5, 12 (Huddle, J., 

dissenting); post at 6 & n.13 (Devine, J., dissenting). I see nothing in 

the Court’s opinion that disagrees, either. The law remains the same: If

there is any “doubt as to the scope of the power, the statute granting 

such power is strictly construed in favor of the landowner and against 

those corporations . . . vested therewith.” Tex. Rice Land Partners, Ltd. 

4 For example, in June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a permit

dispute for a pipeline project in favor of a pipeline company delegated eminentdomain power by Congress. U.S. Forest Serv. v. Cowpasture River Pres. Ass’n,

140 S. Ct. 1837, 1841 (2020). A few weeks later, the pipeline company canceled

its project. Niskanen Ctr. v. FERC, 20 F.4th 787, 793 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (Randolph, 

J., concurring). But the pipeline company had already taken easements across

some properties and had begun clearing land for its pipeline. See Atl. Coast

Pipeline, LLC v. 5.63 Acres, More or Less, in Buckingham County, Va., No. 3:18-

CV-6, 2018 WL 1097051, at *11, *17 (W.D. Va. Feb. 28, 2018) (granting the

pipeline company immediate possession so it could begin cutting trees). 
4

v. Denbury Green Pipeline–Tex., LLC, 363 S.W.3d 192, 198 (Tex. 2012)

(quotation omitted). 

Consequently, the courts should cast a jaundiced eye on any 

exercise of eminent-domain authority, especially when a private entity 

wants to seize another citizen’s property. The charge that “the Court 

today abandons these longstanding principles,” post at 3 (Huddle, J., 

dissenting), gets it entirely backward. This case has received the exacting

level of scrutiny that our cases demand. Both the lower courts and this 

Court have invested untold hours to this litigation. Today’s decision does 

not dispense with heightened scrutiny or strict compliance with the law. 

Today’s decision is an implementation of those principles. 

Not only has the Court remained true to those principles, it has 

applied them correctly. The methodological question here is of great 

importance. Every member of this Court agrees that doubts must be 

construed in the landowner’s favor. But the kind of “doubt” that counts 

is the kind that arises from legal text, not from gut instincts or guesses. 

In other words, it is not remotely enough for us to “doubt” that the 

legislature, if starting from scratch, would authorize a particular taking. 

It is not enough to speculate about “what the Legislature actually 

envisioned,” post at 9 (Huddle, J., dissenting), and assume that the real 

statute maps on to some “envisioned” use of it rather than what its text 

clearly says. Reverse-engineering a statute to figure out what was 

“envisioned,” id., or what might have been the “intention of the statute,” 

id. at 5, would lead only to the bad old days, when courts proclaimed what

the legislative purpose was and then made the text obey. Rarely has a 

judge using such a methodology reached a result that the judge dislikes.
5

Likewise, I wholeheartedly share the view that “the meaning of a 

statute that governs is the ordinary meaning commonly understood at 

the time of enactment.” Id. at 11 (quotation omitted). Indeed, that is 

the only thing that an enactment can mean—its meaning cannot change 

merely with the passage of time. Take this case, for example. If highspeed rail had existed and was well known when the legislature passed 

the statutes that grant eminent-domain authority here, and if it was 

clear that reasonable speakers of English at the time thought that those 

statutes did not cover high-speed rail, we would certainly conclude that 

those statutes do not cover high-speed rail today, either. But when a 

statute defines its scope by using clear words that prescribe specific 

conditions, such a law reaches new developments that satisfy the 

specified statutory criteria. See ante at 18. An important part of the 

promise of the rule of law itself extends to those who arrange their 

affairs in compliance with what the law requires or authorizes. If the 

legislature wants to cabin its statutes to existing conditions or to exclude 

anything that has not yet been invented, it has many tools to do so. 

Definition sections, sunset provisions, and other textual limitations can 

bound a statute’s scope. The legislature can repeal or amend the statute. 

But when it deploys none of those tools, as with these statutes, courts 

cannot enter the legislative arena and do so themselves. 

I say all this to emphasize the fundamental point before us: that 

we can judicially invalidate an exercise of condemnation only upon the 

kind of “doubt” about the scope or meaning of statutory or constitutional 

provisions that is textually demonstrable. Even when we would much 

rather the result be different, and even when we persuade ourselves that
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the legislature must have intended otherwise, “we are bound” by “the 

words of the statute” and cannot “rewrite those words to achieve an 

unstated purpose.” See BankDirect Cap. Fin., LLC v. Plasma Fab, LLC, 

519 S.W.3d 76, 86–87 (Tex. 2017) (quotation omitted). Cf. Hegar v. 

Health Care Serv. Corp., ___S.W.3d ___, 2022 WL 2183069 (Tex. June 

17, 2022) (Blacklock, J., dissenting) (emphasizing that when the words 

of a statute deprive us of “confidence one way or the other” about the 

statute’s meaning, clear-statement rules may supply a tie-breaker). 

Given what can qualify as a judicially cognizable “doubt” in the 

first place, there is no reasonable doubt about any relevant text before 

us today. It is one thing to agree, as I do and we all do, that textual 

doubt about the authorization of eminent domain must be resolved 

against the exercise of that power. It is quite another thing to expand 

the terrain from the reasonable scope of statutory language all the way 

to the edge of what is barely conceivable. That sort of hunt for doubt will

never miss its prey. We can always create some doubt about whether the 

legislature, if asked today about a particular use of eminent domain, 

would approve it. 

One basis for supposed doubt today is that the intrusion into 

private-property interests that is required to build the project at issue 

here is massive. It certainly is. But while that feature may focus our 

attention or lead us to exercise special care (which we have done), the 

size of the intrusion cannot affect the legal analysis itself. The judiciary 

cannot green-light a tiny violation of a Texan’s rights, but neither can it 

impede a huge intrusion if it is one that the law permits. For the courts, 

at least, the question truly does reduce to determining what the words
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of the Texas Constitution and statutes actually mean.

On that score, I cannot regard this case as particularly close. The 

Texas Constitution expressly authorizes the use of eminent domain by 

private entities. Tex. Const. art. I, § 17(a)(1). Many Texas statutes 

expressly extend that power to private entities, and two such statutes 

apply to the Texas Central Entities. Tex. Transp. Code §§ 81.002(2), 

112.002(5), 131.011–131.012. To use the power of the judiciary to thwart 

the use of this authority, we must conclude that neither statute applies. 

But both of them do.

First, as the Court’s well-written opinion articulates, the delegation

of eminent-domain power to “corporation[s] chartered under the laws of 

this state to conduct and operate an electric railway between two 

municipalities in this state” includes the delegation of power to the Texas 

Central Entities. Tex. Transp. Code § 131.012. Those two entities, 

chartered under Texas law, were formed for the very purpose of operating

an electric railway between two Texas municipalities. If the legislature

wishes to withdraw the power that it delegated—that the Constitution 

allows it to delegate—it does not need this Court’s help. Nothing about 

the current delegation turns on the fact that technology has evolved so 

that an electric railway is faster, has a greater capacity, and can travel 

longer distances. None of those features is relevant to the text or context 

of a statute that has long been part of our law. We would rewrite the 

statute, not resolve “doubt” about the statute, if we allowed technological 

improvements to displace the text. 

Second, the Texas Central Entities are also “operating a railroad”

under Transportation Code § 81.002, as the Chief Justice’s concurrence
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explains. Any doubt that the legislature intended to restrict eminentdomain power to only entities currently operating a railroad is wiped 

away because the legislature elsewhere clarified that a railroad 

company “may acquire property by condemnation” for “the incorporation

of the railroad,” to obtain “the right of way, or new or additional rightof-way,” or for “any other purpose connected with or necessary to the 

building, operating, or running of the railroad.” Tex. Transp. Code 

§ 112.053 (emphasis added). This language reveals that the legislature 

intended to grant nascent railroad entities, including those not yet 

operating trains on tracks, the power to condemn property so they might

acquire “the right of way” and “build[] . . . the railroad.” Id. (emphases

added). I respect my dissenting colleagues’ understanding of the text and

fully credit that what divides us is only our different good-faith efforts to

read it. But I find it implausible and countertextual that the Texas 

Legislature would gladly welcome an existing railroad company chartered 

in China or Chile to come and seize the property of Texas citizens to build

a new railroad but would forbid a new Texas company from doing so. I 

cannot see the logic or textual command to support that result and I thus 

cannot join my dissenting colleagues. The legislature, I suppose, could 

limit eminent-domain delegations to entities that are expanding existing

railroad operations in Texas or expanding from some other locale to Texas,

but it has not done so. 

* * *

As a result, the Court today keeps the promise that every judicial 

system must make if it wants to remain judicial: “to have neither 

FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment . . . .” The Federalist No. 78, at 
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490 (Alexander Hamilton) (Benjamin Fletcher Wright ed., 1961). That 

thought likely is cold comfort to those who have fought to protect their 

property. I acknowledge that reaction; I respect it; I share in the 

frustration that must accompany it. But without devaluing the affected 

property interests in the slightest, I am convinced that today’s decision 

reflects something of great value even to those who face great loss: the 

judiciary’s commitment to the rule of law and to the self-government of 

the People of Texas. 

The People have authorized the eminent-domain authority at 

issue here both through the Constitution itself and through the statutes 

enacted by their elected representatives. If that authority should be 

further restricted—and maybe it should—that choice is up to the People, 

too. As judges, we have no authority to go beyond clearly saying what 

the law is. Statutes that satisfy the Constitution—and no constitutional 

challenge was even brought here—are not for us to “fix.” Judicially 

circumscribing eminent-domain authority of the sort at issue here would 

be a well-intended but ultimately dangerous intrusion into the system 

of self-government that we value so highly. 

It is when the stakes are high that the lines of separation between 

the branches matter most. The stakes here clearly are high. The parties’

briefs, and the briefs and letters from amici that we have received, all 

agree on that point. Many speak with eloquence and urgency to the 

serious and even fearsome risks of eminent domain. But even more 

alarming is the prospect of the judiciary exceeding its role, even when—

perhaps especially when—the issue presented is of great importance. I 

wholly agree that we must view with suspicion any claim of authority to 
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wield eminent-domain power, and I will always subject such a claim to 

exacting scrutiny. Reversing the judgment below, however, would require

something more: a textual basis to doubt the scope of the statutes at 

issue here. I see no good basis for disregarding the plain text. I therefore 

join both the Court’s opinion and the Chief Justice’s concurrence. 

Evan A. Young

Justice

OPINION FILED: June 24, 2022