Opinion ID: 2829378
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Court’s Holding

Text: The Court recognizes and agrees that the government does not commit a taking when it abates a public nuisance. ___ S.W.3d ___. But the Court allows Stewart to circumvent the URSB’s determination that her house was a nuisance and the trial court’s affirmation of that determination pursuant to its substantial evidence review despite the fact that Stewart has never directly attacked the validity of either the statutes involved or Dallas’s ordinances that (1) define a nuisance, (2) allow determination of the factual nuisance issue by the URSB pursuant to specified procedures and the definition of nuisance prescribed by the Legislature, and (3) provide for substantial evidence review by a trial court that is authorized to reverse or modify the URSB’s order in whole or in part. Nevertheless, her position clearly is that they are invalid: “The question as to whether or not [Stewart’s] home was a nuisance is a justiciable question to be determined alone by a court or jury trying the case.” Put differently, she maintains that she is entitled to a de novo determination of the nuisance question despite not having challenged the substance of either the statutes or Dallas’s ordinances providing procedural and substantive safeguards for persons whose property is alleged to be a nuisance, define the term nuisance, authorize judicial review of the URSB’s quasi-judicial nuisance finding and judicial modification of the URSB order. Stewart and the Court mainly base their positions on City of Houston v. Lurie , 224 S.W.2d 871 (Tex. 1949) and several cases preceding Lurie : City of Texarkana v. Reagan , 247 S.W. 816 (Tex. 1923), Crossman v. City of Galveston , 247 S.W. 810 (Tex. 1923), Stockwell v. State , 221 S.W. 932 (Tex. 1920). Based on these cases the Court holds that the URSB’s determination that Stewart’s house was an urban nuisance as defined by the City ordinance—which reflects the statutory definition—could not stand absent “full judicial review.” ___ S.W.3d at ___. In Lurie , Aneeth Lurie refused to tear down two buildings she owned after the city council determined the buildings were nuisances. Lurie , 224 S.W.2d at 873 . An ordinance provided that if an owner failed to comply with an order of the city council, “the city attorney ‘shall file suit in the proper court against such owner and obtain the necessary orders and process of said court to enforce the orders of the city council.’” Id. The ordinance did not provide for judicial review of the council’s determination that a property was a nuisance. Pursuant to the ordinance, the city attorney sued Lurie to enforce the council’s order. Id. The trial court submitted the issue to the jury, which found only one of the two buildings was a nuisance. Id. The trial court granted a JNOV, rendered judgment that both buildings were nuisances, and ordered their demolition. Id . The court of appeals reversed for jury charge error. Id. In this Court, the City argued that the trial court should not have even submitted the issues to the jury. Id. at 873-74. Rather, it argued the trial court should have rendered judgment for the City, or alternatively, instructed a verdict for the City because it had introduced substantial evidence reasonably supporting the council’s findings. Id. Relying on Crossman and Reagan , this Court rejected the City’s argument for application of the substantial evidence rule: The authority to decide such a question involves the exercise of judicial discretion, and ordinarily includes the authority to weigh evidence, to make findings of fact, and to apply rules of law. It may well be doubted that a limited review of the facts, as under the substantial evidence rule, would amount to a judicial determination of the justiciable question here involved. Trial under that rule would not establish whether or not the buildings are nuisances, “in the same manner as any other fact.” Certainly we would not be justified in applying the substantial evidence rule to this case when there is nothing in the statutes, including the home rule enabling act, or in the city’s charter or in the city’s ordinance, expressing an intention that the suit be tried under that rule. Lurie , 224 S.W.2d at 876 (emphasis added). Thus, the Court’s refusal to afford preclusive effect to the council’s determination that a property was a nuisance, or to afford substantial evidence review of the council’s determination, occurred in the absence of a statute or ordinance providing for substantial evidence review. Id. Similarly, in the cases upon which Lurie relied— Stockwell , Crossman , and Reagan —there was no statute or ordinance providing for judicial review. See Stockwell , 221 S.W. at 934; Crossman , 247 S.W. at 811; Reagan , 247 S.W. at 816-17. Lurie and its predecessor cases stemmed from the Court’s refusal to recognize a non-judicial nuisance finding as conclusive. See Lurie , 224 S.W.2d at 875; see also Reagan , 247 S.W. at 817 (refusing to uphold an ordinance that “makes final the determination of the city council on the question as to whether or not the building under investigation is a nuisance”); Crossman , 247 S.W. at 813 (“Another vice of this ordinance is that it purports to make the action of the city commissioners, in declaring the building a nuisance, final.”). These cases expressed the Court’s position that such an approach subjected property rights to disposition by officials “exercising, not judicial powers, but purely executive powers.” Stockwell , 221 S.W. at 934. Since those cases were decided, however, the Legislature has enacted statutes authorizing substantial evidence judicial review of similar types of decisions. See Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 54.039(f) (“The district court’s review shall be limited to a hearing under the substantial evidence rule.”); id. § 214.0012(f) (“Appeal in the district court shall be limited to a hearing under the substantial evidence rule.”). The City of Dallas has incorporated the statutory standard into its ordinance. See Dallas Tex. Code § 27-9(e). Thus, in the matter before us, unlike the situations in Lurie , Stockwell , Crossman , and Reagan , statutes and an ordinance provide a definition of nuisance, procedures for giving notice of and determining whether property falls within the definition of nuisance, judicial review of the nuisance determination, and the standard to be used in any judicial review. See Cedar Crest # 10, Inc. v. City of Dallas , 754 S.W.2d 351, 353 (Tex. App.—Eastland 1988, writ denied) (distinguishing Lurie on these grounds). Although the Court recognizes that Lurie involved the absence of a statutory basis for substantial evidence review, in a footnote of its opinion the Court concludes that the basis of the Court’s holding was not statutory; instead, Lurie focused on the special nature of the right being protected. ___ S.W.3d ___ n.15. I agree that the right involved in Lurie was special: it was the constitutional right of a private property owner to be secure from governmental taking of private property without compensation. See Lurie , 224 S.W.2d at 874 . But the Court subsequently squarely held substantial evidence review valid as applied to this same right. In City of Houston v. Blackbird , 394 S.W.2d 159 (Tex. 1965), the City of Houston passed an ordinance that levied assessments against property owners for improvements made to streets abutting their properties. Id . at 161. The amount of the assessments were based on the city council’s determination that the property owners would receive special benefits from the proposed improvements. Id. The property owners filed suit in district court seeking de novo review of the council’s determination that their property would be especially benefitted by the improvements. Id. On appeal, this Court concluded that the validity of the amount of the assessments involved the takings clause of the Texas Constitution, yet the property owners were not entitled to de novo review of the council’s determinations: An assessment against property and its owner for paving improvements on any basis other than for benefits conferred and in an amount materially greater than the benefits conferred, violates Sec. 17 of Article 1 of the Constitution of Texas, which prohibits the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. The right to judicial review of acts of legislative and administrative bodies affecting constitutional or property rights is axiomatic. The City of Houston does not question the verity or soundness of this proposition. What the City does question is the right of respondents in this case to a full-blown de novo trial of the question of benefits. We agree with the City that respondents had no such right; and, accordingly, we agree with the City that respondents were not entitled to a jury trial of the issues in this case and that the jury’s answers to the special issues submitted to them should have been disregarded. Id. at 162-63 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). As the Court noted, the Legislature “precluded judicial review of such acts to the extent of its constitutional power” and the Legislature did not intend to provide “dissatisfied property owners a de novo review thereof.” Id. at 163. The Court upheld that choice by the Legislature, even though the takings clause was the basis for the property owners’ challenge, just as it underlies Stewart’s challenge. Similarly, the Court held in Brazosport Savings and Loan Ass’n v. American Savings and Loan Ass’n that parties claiming an agency’s decision infringed their vested property rights in franchises had a right to judicial review, but the right was limited to “ prov [ ing ] their allegations that the Commissioner’s action was illegal or without support in substantial evidence.” 342 S.W.2d 747, 752 (Tex. 1961). The Court discounts the holdings of Blackbird and Brazosport by reading them as “due process cases alleging improper agency actions implicating property interests.” ___ S.W.3d ___. But in Blackbird the Court squarely addressed the issue as one involving the takings clause of the Texas Constitution. Id. at 163. The only real distinction between Blackbird and Lurie is that Lurie involved the taking of real property, whereas Blackbird involved the taking of money by means of requiring payment of an assessment. But they are both property takings claims, nonetheless. And the result in Blackbird depended on the city council’s fact-based finding that the abutting landowners’ property was especially benefitted by the paving. The Court nevertheless holds that findings of the URSB cannot survive because review was by the substantial evidence standard even though the URSB’s decision did not entail interpretation of law or the constitution. And the Court does so despite Stewart’s failure to challenge any part of the process provided in Dallas’s ordinances as being unconstitutional or violating statutes. Her specific complaint was about the post-hearing, pre-demolition notice required by section 27-13 of Dallas’s ordinances, and the jury found against her on that question. She neither complains of how the due process question was submitted to the jury nor challenges the jury’s finding on it. To the contrary, she moved for judgment on the verdict without excepting or excluding the due process finding from her motion. The Court also states that Blackbird and Brazosport “both predate our decision in [ Steele v. City of Houston , 603 S.W.2d 786], which recognized an implied constitutional right of action for takings claims.” ___ S.W.3d ___. The Court concludes “ Steele [] undermined their vitality insofar as they give broad deference to the Legislature’s determination of remedial schemes for property rights violations.” ___ S.W.3d ___. This statement implies that Steele overruled Brazosport and Blackbird . But Steele does not address Brazosport and Blackbird , nor does it address the Legislature’s authorization and establishment of a quasi-judicial process to address public nuisances. In Steele , police sought to flush and capture fugitive prisoners by starting a fire in the house where the fugitives were hiding. 603 S.W.2d at 789. The house burned and the owners sought compensation from the city. Id. The case did not involve the propriety of an administrative process involving a limited definition of what comprised a public nuisance and provisions for notice, presentment of evidence, opportunity for rehearing, judicial review of findings and determinations, and even judicial authority to modify the administrative order. See id. at 792. Rather, it involved whether the police’s burning of the property came within the doctrine of great public necessity. See id. (“The defendant City of Houston may defend its actions by proof of a great public necessity.”). That doctrine recognizes that a governmental entity may destroy property “[ i ]n the case of fire, flood, pestilence or other great public calamity, when immediate action is necessary to save human life or to avert an overwhelming destruction of property.” Id. at 792 n.2 . In contrast to Steele , where the question was whether an emergency existed and property was destroyed without prior proceedings to determine the public nuisance question, statutorily authorized abatement proceedings involve quasi-judicial determinations occurring before destruction of the property and affording procedural and substantive safeguards to property owners. See Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code § 54.034. Situations involving determining whether property was previously destroyed because of great public necessity are different from situations involving destruction of property following proceedings pursuant to statutes and ordinances requiring advance notice, a hearing with the opportunity to challenge the public nuisance determination before destruction, and review by a court empowered to set aside or modify the final order. In my view Steele is inapposite. See, e.g. , Crossman , 247 S.W. at 814; Stockwell , 221 S.W. at 935. The Court simply displaces a permissible Legislative decision to prescribe a particular type of judicial review and oversight of the determination that property was a nuisance and the administrative remedy. 2 See Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code §§ 54.039(f), 214.0012(f); Blackbird , 394 S.W.2d at 162-63; ___ S.W.3d at ___ (Guzman, J., dissenting).