Opinion ID: 6108816
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: JDC/Firethorne's Standing

Text: This case requires us to examine Meyers's authority as to plat applications in the County. As explained above, to establish standing, a plaintiff must plead facts demonstrating that the plaintiff suffered an injury, this injury is fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct, and this injury is likely to be redressed by the requested relief. Heckman , 369 S.W.3d at 155-56 ; see also Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560-61 , 112 S.Ct. 2130 . We hold that JDC/Firethorne has failed to satisfy the redressability requirement as to the relief it seeks against Meyers, and thus, JDC/Firethorne lacks standing to pursue this injunction against him in his official capacity. 6  The principal injury JDC/Firethorne alleges is that its plat applications for Sections 16 and 19 are being improperly held by the County's engineering department and have not yet been presented for approval to the commissioners court as required by chapter 232 and the Regulations of Subdivisions. JDC/Firethorne attributes this harm in part to Meyers, alleging that he is acting outside the course and scope of any legal or statutory authority by instructing Stolleis to hold the submitted plats. It asserts that the emails between Meyers and Stolleis are actual evidence that Meyers is controlling and directing the Engineering Department with regard to the actions that they take in his precinct. Thus, JDC/Firethorne seeks a permanent injunction against Meyers, directing [him] to cease and desist-in the future-from instructing the Fort Bend County Engineering Department to 'hold,' 'delay,' or otherwise impede the plat applications and construction plans JDC/Firethorne submits, asserting that such an injunction is necessary to ensure that its submissions are processed according to chapter 232 and the Regulations of Subdivisions. 7 Whether a plaintiff has sufficiently pled that the requested remedy will redress its harm can turn on whether the plaintiff has shown that the defendant has authority to respond to any requested injunctive relief. See Lujan , 504 U.S. at 568-70 , 112 S.Ct. 2130 (concluding that the plaintiffs lacked standing when their injury could be redressed only by terminating funding for foreign projects, and the agencies that funded those projects were not parties to the suit, so any relief the trial court could have provided against the existing defendants was not likely to produce the plaintiffs' requested relief) (Scalia, J.); Okpalobi v. Foster , 244 F.3d 405 , 419, 426-27 (5th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (concluding that the plaintiff lacked standing because an injunction granted by the district court was utterly meaningless when the defendants had no powers to redress the injuries alleged); Good Shepherd Med. Ctr., Inc. v. State , 306 S.W.3d 825 , 836-37 (Tex. App.-Austin 2010, no pet.) (holding, in part, that the plaintiff hospital lacked standing when it was merely speculative that the defendant could redress the hospital's injury); see also 13A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 3531.6 (3d ed. 2008) (Other cases as well deny standing because ... it is uncertain whether the defendant has authority to respond to injunctive relief.). JDC/Firethorne's insistence that Meyers has acted without authority as to the plat-application submission process betrays the deficiency in standing-if Meyers has no legal power over the processing and presentment of plat applications, then JDC/Firethorne has not shown a substantial likelihood that its requested relief will  remedy its alleged injury. See Heckman , 369 S.W.3d at 155-56 . As explained above, the County's Regulations of Subdivisions designate the county engineer as the sole county official responsible for receiving all documentation and information that must be submitted with the plat application. Regulations of Subdivisions § 2.6(A), (D). The county commissioners have no authority to present a completed plat application to the commissioners court-the Regulations of Subdivisions delegate that responsibility solely to the county engineer. See id. § 2.6(D). Meyers, as a single county commissioner, cannot present a completed plat application to the commissioners court for approval, nor does he have authority, as an individual commissioner, to approve a plat application. See TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE § 232.002(a) (The commissioners court of the county in which the land is located must approve ... a [required] plat ....); Regulations of Subdivisions § 2.5(A) (The Commissioners Court of the Fort Bend County must approve ... a [required] plat ....). In fact, Meyers has no authority or responsibility with respect to processing plat applications until they reach the commissioners court, and even then, he acts only as one member of a five-person body. See TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE § 232.002(a) ; Regulations of Subdivisions § 2.5(A); Hays Cty. v. Hays Cty. Water Planning P'ship , 106 S.W.3d 349 , 360 (Tex. App.-Austin 2003, no pet.) (The commissioners court may only validly act as a body; the acts of a single commissioner do not bind the court.). This case therefore implicates the warning we issued in Heckman -[i]f ... a plaintiff suing in a Texas court requests injunctive relief ... but the injunction could not possibly remedy his situation, then he lacks standing to bring that claim. 369 S.W.3d at 155 . Because the injunction JDC/Firethorne seeks against Meyers could not possibly remedy its alleged harm, JDC/Firethorne lacks standing to seek such relief against Meyers. While there is no remedy the trial court could fashion against Meyers that would afford relief as to JDC/Firethorne's plat applications, JDC/Firethorne does seek relief with respect to other defendants who could remedy its alleged injury. Specifically, it seeks a writ of mandamus directing Stolleis to submit the plat applications to the commissioners court. It also seeks a writ of mandamus directing the commissioners court to approve the applications and an injunction requiring the County and the commissioners court to permit the commencement of the construction of Sections 16 and 19. If the trial court were to issue the requested writs instructing Stolleis to present completed plat applications to the commissioners court and instructing the commissioners court to approve those completed applications, then it would provide full relief for the principal injury about which JDC/Firethorne complains. Thus, any decision from any court granting the requested injunction against Meyers would be ineffectual and unnecessary. See 13A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 3531.6 (3d ed. 2008) (An abstract decision without remedial consequence seems merely advisory, an unnecessary expenditure of judicial resources that burdens the adversary and carries all the traditional risks of making bad law and trespassing on the provinces of the executive and legislature.). Governments cannot operate if every citizen who concludes that a public official has abused his discretion is granted the right to come into court and bring such official's public acts under judicial review. Holland v. Taylor , 153 Tex. 433 , 270 S.W.2d 219 , 221 (1954) (quoting Osborne v. Keith , 142 Tex. 262 , 177 S.W.2d 198 , 200 (1944) ). Further, individual commissioners have no authority to bind the county  by their separate action. Canales v. Laughlin , 147 Tex. 169 , 214 S.W.2d 451 , 455 (1948) ; see also Hays Cty. , 106 S.W.3d at 360 . One county commissioner acting alone cannot process or approve a plat application, see TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE § 232.002(a), nor can one county commissioner alone fire a county engineer. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 252.307(b). The fact that a county commissioner may have influence as a result of his position in the hierarchy of county government is merely a political reality. But even if such influence somehow contributed to Stolleis's decision to hold the plat applications, this political reality does not compel the conclusion that JDC/Firethorne has standing to pursue this injunction against Meyers when Meyers has no legal authority to remedy JDC/Firethorne's alleged harm. Besides the potential First Amendment problems we foresee in limiting public officials' communications regarding what is arguably a matter of public concern, allowing JDC/Firethorne's claim against Meyers to move forward on these facts would allow a plaintiff to join as a defendant any government official who may have influence over the primary actor with authority over the matter at issue.