Court Opinion

ID: 9396319
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-21 14:06:31.368126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:16.075663
License: Public Domain

Supreme Court of Texas
                            ══════════
                             No. 21-0507
                            ══════════

        Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3,
                               Petitioner,

                                    v.

              Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 1,
                              Respondent

   ═══════════════════════════════════════
               On Petition for Review from the
     Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District of Texas
   ═══════════════════════════════════════

                        Argued January 12, 2023

      JUSTICE LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court.

      In this eminent-domain proceeding brought by one political
subdivision   against    another,   the   principal   issue   is   whether
governmental immunity bars such a proceeding. The court of appeals
held that the condemnee entity is immune from suit and affirmed the
trial court’s order granting the entity’s plea to the jurisdiction. Because
we hold that governmental immunity does not apply in this context, we
reverse.
                              I. Background

      The facts of this case are undisputed. Petitioner Hidalgo County
Water Improvement District No. 3 (the Improvement District) and
Respondent Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 1 (the Irrigation
District) both provide water and irrigation services in Hidalgo County.
The Irrigation District operates an open irrigation outtake canal in
McAllen through which most of the drinking water supplied to the City
of Edinburg flows.
      The Improvement District operates an underground irrigation
pipeline along the right-of-way for Bicentennial Boulevard in McAllen.
The Improvement District entered into an agreement with the City of
McAllen to extend the irrigation pipeline in conjunction with the City’s
northward extension of the boulevard.           The route of the proposed
pipeline extension crosses under the Irrigation District’s canal.
      The Improvement District offered to purchase a subsurface
easement from the Irrigation District, which rejected the offer. After
negotiations failed, the Improvement District filed this condemnation
action.   See TEX. WATER CODE § 49.222(a) (granting water districts
condemnation    authority).      The    trial    court   appointed   special
commissioners, who set a hearing to assess the Irrigation District’s
damages caused by the condemnation.                See TEX. PROP. CODE
§§ 21.014–.015 (requiring the judge in a condemnation proceeding to
appoint special commissioners to assess the condemnee’s damages). The
Irrigation District did not attend the hearing.          The commissioners
awarded the Irrigation District $1,900 in damages.

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      The Irrigation District timely objected to the commissioners’
findings, see id. § 21.018(a), arguing that the Improvement District
could not establish the paramount public importance of its pipeline.
Under the paramount-public-importance doctrine, a condemnation
authority may not condemn land already dedicated to a public use if
doing so would effectively destroy its existing use, unless the condemnor
can show that the intended use is of “paramount public importance” and
cannot be achieved by any other means.           1A JULIUS L. SACKMAN,
NICHOLS   ON   EMINENT DOMAIN § 2.17 (3d ed. 2023).          The Irrigation
District contended that the Improvement District’s proposed easement
would practically destroy the Irrigation District’s canal and the
proposed pipeline extension was not of paramount importance when
compared to the existing canal.
      Before the trial court ruled on the objection, the Irrigation District
filed a plea to the jurisdiction. In its plea, the Irrigation District argued
that it had governmental immunity from the condemnation suit and
that the Legislature had not waived that immunity. The trial court
agreed, granted the plea, and dismissed the suit.
      The court of appeals affirmed. 627 S.W.3d 529, 540 (Tex. App.—
Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2021).           The court reasoned that the
Improvement District’s condemnation proceeding raises separation-of-
powers issues by asking the judiciary to interfere with the Irrigation
District’s discretion regarding the disposition of its property. Id. at 537.
Therefore, the court held that governmental immunity bars the suit,
even though it poses no grave danger to the public fisc. Id. Having
determined that governmental immunity is implicated, the court of

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appeals then rejected the Improvement District’s contention that
Section 49.222 of the Water Code waives the Irrigation District’s
immunity from a condemnation suit. Id. at 540.
      The Improvement District petitioned for review.       Before this
Court, the Improvement District argues that governmental immunity
does not apply in the condemnation context for two reasons. First, the
Improvement District contends that the modern justifications for
governmental immunity are not served by applying the doctrine to
condemnation suits. Second, it asserts that separating the power to
condemn, which the Improvement District undoubtedly possesses, from
the power to bring an action to condemn makes little practical sense.
So, rather than address condemnation disputes involving governmental-
entity condemnees under an immunity-and-waiver framework, the
Improvement District argues that we should do so by applying the
paramount-public-importance doctrine.
      Alternatively, the Improvement District argues that, even if
governmental immunity does apply in the condemnation context,
Section 49.222 of the Water Code clearly and unambiguously waives
that immunity by empowering the Improvement District to condemn
any land inside or outside its boundaries for a variety of purposes. The
Improvement District argues that this statutory grant of condemnation
authority is broad enough to necessarily include a waiver of a
governmental-entity condemnee’s immunity.
      The Irrigation District responds that immunity should apply in
this context to prevent parties from using the judiciary to alter
government policy. The Irrigation District disputes the Improvement

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District’s assertion that the paramount-public-importance doctrine
constitutes the primary judicial mechanism for resolving condemnation
disputes involving governmental-entity condemnees, arguing that the
doctrine comes into play only after a court determines that the
Legislature has waived the condemnee’s immunity.                 Finally, the
Irrigation District argues that the court of appeals correctly determined
that Section 49.222 does not clearly and unambiguously waive the
Irrigation District’s immunity.

                               II. Discussion

       Sovereign immunity generally bars lawsuits against the State
absent legislative consent to be sued. State v. Lueck, 290 S.W.3d 876,
880 (Tex. 2009). Governmental immunity provides similar protection to
the State’s political subdivisions, including the water districts involved
in this case. See Reata Constr. Co. v. City of Dallas, 197 S.W.3d 371, 374
(Tex. 2006). One component of such immunity—immunity from suit—
implicates a court’s subject matter jurisdiction and is thus properly
raised in a plea to the jurisdiction. 1 Sampson v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin,
500 S.W.3d 380, 384 (Tex. 2016); see also Rattray v. City of Brownsville,
662 S.W.3d 860, 868 (Tex. 2023) (reiterating that, though “immunity
does not equate to subject matter jurisdiction,” it nevertheless
“implicates” jurisdiction “such that an opinion in the face of a valid

       1Immunity from liability—another component of sovereign immunity—
“protects the state from judgment even if the Legislature has expressly
consented to the suit.” Tex. Dep’t of Transp. v. Jones, 8 S.W.3d 636, 638 (Tex.
1999). Unlike immunity from suit, immunity from liability is an affirmative
defense that is waived if not pleaded. Id.

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assertion of immunity may correctly be called ‘advisory’” (citations
omitted)).

      A. Recognized Limits on Sovereign Immunity’s Scope

      When reviewing a dispute about whether a claim against a
governmental entity is barred by immunity, our focus typically is not on
whether the entity is immune in the first instance—it usually is—but
whether the Legislature has chosen to waive that immunity. See Lueck,
290 S.W.3d at 880. Today we are presented with the rare antecedent
question of whether immunity applies in a certain type of proceeding,
specifically, a condemnation proceeding.
      Because sovereign immunity, and by extension governmental
immunity, is first and foremost a common-law doctrine, we have
recognized that the judiciary is responsible for defining the doctrine’s
boundaries and determining whether it applies in the first instance.
City of Conroe v. San Jacinto River Auth., 602 S.W.3d 444, 457 (Tex.
2020). That obligation—to evaluate whether the doctrine should be
modified or abrogated under particular circumstances—remains
squarely within the judiciary’s province, while the Legislature
determines the circumstances under which immunity is waived. City of
Dallas v. Albert, 354 S.W.3d 368, 373 (Tex. 2011) (“[Governmental
immunity’s] boundaries are established by the judiciary, but we have
consistently held that waivers of it are the prerogative of the
Legislature.”); see also Tex. Dep’t of Crim. Just. v. Miller, 51 S.W.3d 583,
592 (Tex. 2001) (Hecht, J., concurring) (“The common-law rule of
immunity in Texas was the judiciary’s to recognize, and it is ours to
disregard.” (internal citations omitted)).

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      In determining whether sovereign immunity applies in the first
instance, we consider the nature and purposes of the doctrine as guides.
City of Conroe, 602 S.W.3d at 458. As we have reiterated on numerous
occasions, the justifications for this longstanding common-law rule have
evolved over the centuries.      Our modern jurisprudence justifies the
doctrine as a means of (1) protecting the public fisc by shielding tax
resources from being diverted to pay litigation costs and money
judgments and (2) preserving the separation of powers and the
Legislature’s prerogative to apportion tax dollars to their intended
purposes. See, e.g., Brown & Gay Eng’g, Inc. v. Olivares, 461 S.W.3d
117, 121 (Tex. 2015).
      With those purposes in mind, this Court has recognized limits on
the doctrine’s reach. For example, in Reata, we reiterated that “when
an   affirmative   claim   for   relief   is   filed   by   a   governmental
entity, . . . immunity from suit no longer completely exists” for that
entity. 197 S.W.3d at 376. Specifically, when a governmental entity
files suit or intervenes and seeks monetary relief, it is no longer immune
from suit for “claims against it which are germane to, connected with
and properly defensive to” the governmental entity’s own claims, at least
to the extent that the relief sought does not exceed the amount necessary
to offset the entity’s recovery. Id. at 377. In such circumstances, we
explained, “we see no ill befalling the governmental entity or hampering
of its governmental functions.” Id. at 376–77.
      It is also well settled that immunity does not bar ultra vires suits
against state officials. City of El Paso v. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d 366, 372
(Tex. 2009).   That is, sovereign immunity does not prohibit a suit

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alleging that a state official has acted without legal or statutory
authority and seeking only prospective relief requiring the official’s
compliance with the law, even if the requested declaration would compel
the payment of public funds. Id. We have reasoned that such suits “do
not seek to alter government policy but rather to enforce existing policy.”
Id.
      Finally, we recently held that governmental immunity does not
bar a suit under the Expedited Declaratory Judgment Act (EDJA), City
of Conroe, 602 S.W.3d at 459, which allows municipal bond issuers to
bring an expedited declaratory-judgment action in rem to confirm the
validity of a proposed public-securities issuance, see TEX. GOV’T CODE
§ 1205.021. The purpose of this expedited procedure is to “stop ‘the age
old practice allowing one disgruntled taxpayer to stop the entire bond
issue by simply filing suit.’” Buckholts Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Glaser, 632
S.W.2d 146, 149 (Tex. 1982) (construing the EDJA’s predecessor
statute).   We noted in City of Conroe that in rem jurisdiction is
dependent on the court’s control over the defendant res, and the effect
of an in rem judgment is limited to the property that supports
jurisdiction. 602 S.W.3d at 458. These distinctive characteristics of
in rem jurisdiction proved relevant to whether immunity applied
because an EDJA suit, by its nature, does not impose personal liability
and thus requires no payment to satisfy a resulting judgment.           Id.
Consequently, we noted that an EDJA suit “do[es] not subject
governments to the ‘costs and consequences’ of improvident government
actions” because the entities the Act intends to protect are governmental
entities themselves. Id.

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        B. Historical Background of Condemnation Suits

      This case asks how sovereign immunity interacts with a second
power inherent to the state’s status as a sovereign: eminent domain. See
TEX. CONST. art. I, § 1. Like sovereign immunity, the sovereign’s power
to condemn property for public use is both ancient and foundational to
the nature of sovereignty itself.     Tex. Highway Dep’t v. Weber, 219
S.W.2d 70, 72 (Tex. 1949) (describing eminent domain as “a right
inherent in organized society itself”); see also PUBLIUS CORNELIUS
TACITUS, ANNALS     OF   TACITUS bk. I, at 75 (Clifford H. Moore trans.,
Harvard Univ. Press 2003) (1925) (discussing Emperor Tiberius’s
payment of just compensation to a Roman Senator whose house was
damaged by the construction of a public road and aqueduct).
      The Texas Legislature has long imbued some condemnors with
the power to condemn public land for certain purposes. See, e.g., Humble
Pipe Line Co. v. State, 2 S.W.2d 1018, 1019–23 (Tex. App.—Austin 1928,
writ ref’d) (noting that the Legislature conferred the right of eminent
domain on pipeline companies in 1919, including “the right to lay [their]
pipe lines across and under any public lands belonging to the state”);
Imperial Irrigation Co. v. Jayne, 138 S.W. 575, 582 (Tex. 1911) (holding
that the Irrigation Act of 1895 “provide[d] for the acquisition of dam and
reservoir sites on the public school lands as well as on all other lands,
when necessary, to the creation of irrigation projects”). Condemnation
proceedings instituted under these legislative grants of authority
naturally   raise   both     sovereign-immunity   and   eminent-domain
considerations.      Accordingly,    understanding   how    courts   have

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historically confronted cases jointly raising these two foundational
issues is particularly relevant to how we should handle them today.
      To that end, we have long resolved issues arising from the
condemnation of land already dedicated to a public use, including
publicly owned land, by applying the paramount-public-importance
doctrine. See Sabine & E.T. Ry. Co. v. Gulf & Interstate Ry. Co., 46 S.W.
784, 786 (Tex. 1898); SACKMAN, supra, § 2.17 (describing the doctrine as
the near-unanimous Anglo–American rule).          As noted, under this
doctrine, a condemnee may prevent a condemnation of property already
devoted to public use if (1) the condemnee first establishes that the
condemnation “would practically destroy the use to which [the property]
has been devoted,” Sabine, 46 S.W. at 786, and (2) the condemnor then
fails to show that “the necessity be so great as to make the new
enterprise of paramount importance to the public, and it cannot be
practically accomplished in any other way.” Id.
      We have repeatedly and consistently applied this doctrine to
condemnation suits against political subdivisions. See, e.g., Canyon
Reg’l Water Auth. v. Guadalupe–Blanco River Auth., 258 S.W.3d 613,
616–17 (Tex. 2008) (suit by water authority to condemn an easement for
the construction of a second water intake and pipeline on a lake owned
by the river authority); Austin Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Sierra Club, 495
S.W.2d 878, 882 (Tex. 1973) (suit by nonprofit organization challenging
a school district’s condemnation of city park land); Harris Cnty.
Drainage Dist. No. 12 v. City of Houston, 35 S.W.2d 118, 122 (Tex.
Comm’n App. 1931, holding approved) (noting that the city would have
the right to exercise eminent-domain authority with respect to property

                                   10
owned by the drainage district, subject to the paramount-public-
importance doctrine); Fort Worth Improvement Dist. No. 1 v. City of Fort
Worth, 158 S.W. 164, 170 (Tex. 1913) (affirming injunction preventing
an improvement district from maintaining levees that threatened to
destroy municipal property, based in part on application of the
paramount-public-importance doctrine). Despite nearly a century of
precedent discussing this doctrine, neither the parties nor this Court
raised the specter of governmental immunity in those cases. Given that
immunity from suit is jurisdictional, the absence of any discussion of
sovereign immunity in these cases is particularly striking. “Courts are
empowered to note potential jurisdictional defects sua sponte,” and by
doing so, a court “discharges its duty to ensure that the court itself is
functioning in an authorized and properly judicial capacity.” Rattray,
662 S.W.3d at 867–68; cf. Kinnear v. Tex. Comm’n on Hum. Rights ex
rel. Hale, 14 S.W.3d 299, 300 (Tex. 2000) (holding that the court of
appeals erred in raising the issue of immunity from liability sua sponte
because, unlike immunity from suit, immunity from liability is waived
if not pleaded).
      Relatedly, the notion that governmental immunity may even
apply in condemnation proceedings has arisen quite recently.           The
parties point to no Texas case law before 2010, and we have found none,
in which the appellate court squarely addressed a governmental entity’s
argument that it enjoyed immunity from a condemnation suit. 2 See

      2  In Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. City of Houston, a
railroad attempted to condemn an easement to build a rail line through city

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Dall. Area Rapid Transit v. Oncor Elec. Delivery Co., 331 S.W.3d 91, 107
(Tex. App.—Dallas 2010) (holding that regional transportation
authorities’ governmental immunity barred an electric utility’s eminent-
domain action), vacated on other grounds, 369 S.W.3d 845 (Tex. 2012).
In vacating the court of appeals’ judgment in Oncor, we assumed
without deciding that immunity applied and held that, if immunity
existed, it had been waived. Oncor Elec. Delivery Co. v. Dall. Area Rapid
Transit, 369 S.W.3d 845, 849 (Tex. 2012); see also In re Lazy W Dist.
No. 1, 493 S.W.3d 538, 544 (Tex. 2016) (“We have never decided whether
a governmental entity is immune from suit to condemn its property, and
we need not do so today.” (internal citation omitted)).

                              C. Analysis

      With this historical and legal background in mind, we turn to the
issue presented: does governmental immunity bar the Improvement
District’s condemnation suit? Considering the purposes governmental
immunity serves, its nature, and the development of our immunity and
eminent-domain precedent, we hold that the Irrigation District is not
immune from this suit.
      First, “an important purpose” of immunity is “to shield the public
from the costs and consequences of improvident actions of their
governments.” Tooke v. City of Mexia, 197 S.W.3d 325, 332 (Tex. 2006).
Condemnation proceedings do not challenge improvident government

property, and the court of appeals summarily noted that cities are immune
from suit absent waiver but held that the city’s immunity was waived by
statute. 171 S.W.3d 240, 245–46 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2005, no
pet.).

                                   12
action; indeed, they challenge no government action at all. Rather, they
involve the lawful exercise of authority to appropriate property for the
benefit of the public. See TEX. PROP. CODE § 21.012. Second, like EDJA
suits, condemnation proceedings against governmental entities are
in rem and do not threaten the public treasury except to the extent the
condemnee entity chooses to participate. See City of Conroe, 602 S.W.3d
at 458. And as the Improvement District points out, if the condemnation
proceeding is successful, the condemnee entity ultimately recovers
money. See KMS Retail Rowlett, LP v. City of Rowlett, 593 S.W.3d 175,
191 (Tex. 2019). The Irrigation District attempts to undermine this fact
by arguing that the condemnation could shift certain risks associated
with the pipeline’s construction and operation from the Improvement
District to the Irrigation District. But this argument relies solely on
speculative and indeterminate future harms. See Brown & Gay, 461
S.W.3d at 129 (rejecting speculation that declining to extend sovereign
immunity to a private contractor would make it difficult for the
government to engage talented private parties for fear of personal
liability because it failed to account for a private party’s ability to
manage any liability exposure through insurance coverage). Even if
those harms materialize, and the risk actually shifts from the
Improvement District to the Irrigation District, 3 the result—at least in
this case—is a reallocation of risk between two public entities. The net
effect on the public fisc is zero.

       3Indeed, it is unclear whether any risk would shift in this context given
the availability of inverse-condemnation suits, as discussed below.

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      Second, we disagree with the court of appeals’ conclusion that
abrogating immunity in this context “threaten[s] separation-of-powers
principles” that immunity protects. 627 S.W.3d at 537–38. To the
contrary, we conclude that recognizing the Irrigation District’s
immunity would implicate separation-of-powers concerns as much as, or
even more than, it mitigates them. The Irrigation District essentially
urges us to substitute the Legislature’s prerogative with the Irrigation
District’s. However, the Legislature created the Improvement District
and granted it eminent-domain authority to fulfill its public purpose.
Extending sovereign immunity into this area thus would provide a
political subdivision with the unilateral ability to undermine the
Legislature’s allocation of condemnation power to an entity to fulfill an
identified public need.
      True, the condemnee entity is also addressing a public need.
However, the paramount-public-importance doctrine has long provided
an adequate framework for balancing the condemnor’s legislatively
granted condemnation authority with the condemnee’s ability to serve
its own public purpose. In applying the doctrine, the court defers to each
entity’s policy discretion by first considering whether allowing the
condemnation undermines the condemnee’s ability to fulfill that
purpose. See Sabine, 46 S.W. at 786. Only after the court determines
that the two purposes cannot coexist does the doctrine require an
inquiry into which interest should prevail under the circumstances of a
particular case. See id. The Irrigation District essentially asks us to
replace this framework with a rigid judicial declaration that the policy
decision of the condemnee public landowner should always prevail

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unless the Legislature expressly provides otherwise. We decline to do
so. Instead, we reaffirm this Court’s longstanding paramount-public-
importance precedent.
      Third, it is well settled that a governmental entity may be sued
for inverse condemnation, by either a public or private landowner, for
taking the owner’s property without paying just compensation. Brazos
River Auth. v. City of Graham, 354 S.W.2d 99, 106 (Tex. 1961); State v.
Holland, 221 S.W.3d 639, 643 (Tex. 2007). If a governmental entity is
not immune from a takings claim on the “back end”—that is, after it has
taken property without compensation—it logically follows that the
entity may pursue a pre-taking eminent-domain action. The Legislature
has instituted a comprehensive scheme governing condemnation
proceedings   precisely     because     a   pre-taking   adjudication   and
compensation is preferable.      A rule that encourages governmental
subdivisions to do the opposite, to bury the pipe now and sort out the
consequences later, is improvident. See PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New
Jersey, 141 S. Ct. 2244, 2260 (2021) (discussing how divorcing eminent-
domain power from the power to bring condemnation proceedings leaves
those exercising the former with only one constitutional option: “[t]ake
property now and require States to sue for compensation later”).
      This    Court’s     precedent,    which   recognizes   governmental
immunity’s limits in other contexts, also supports declining to extend
the doctrine to condemnation suits.         Like an ultra vires claim, a
condemnation suit does not seek to infringe on the condemnee
governmental entity’s policy discretion. Rather, wholly immunizing the
condemnee would undermine the condemnation power the Legislature

                                       15
chose to grant to the condemnor to fulfill an identified public need. And
similar to the EDJA action in City of Conroe, condemnation proceedings
do not impose personal liability on the condemnee entity or subject the
public to the costs and consequences of improvident government action.
See 602 S.W.3d at 456.
         The court of appeals found persuasive that governmental entities
are immune from a trespass-to-try-title action, which, like a
condemnation proceeding, is a “suit for land.” See State v. Lain, 349
S.W.2d 579, 582 (Tex. 1961). We do not, for two reasons.
         First, unlike condemnation suits, sovereign immunity from
trespass-to-try-title actions serves the intended purpose of protecting
the public from the costs of improvident government action and
preventing litigants from controlling government action by imposing
liability. See id. at 581 (“One who takes possession of another’s land
without legal right is no less a trespasser because he is a state official or
employee . . . .”); see also 3 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES
*254–55 (“[I]n the first place, whatever may be amiss in the conduct of
public affairs is not chargeable personally on the king; nor is he, but his
ministers, accountable for it to the people.”). By contrast, condemnation
authority is intended to benefit both governmental entities and the
public. See City of Conroe, 602 S.W.3d at 458 (noting that governmental
entities “are the very entities the EDJA protects”). And rather than
trying     to   control   government    action   through    litigation,   the
condemnation authority is taking legislatively authorized action by
instituting a condemnation suit. See TEX. WATER CODE § 49.222.

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      Second, “[w]hile suits to try the State’s title are barred by
immunity, in some instances a party may maintain a trespass to try title
action against governmental officials acting in their official capacities.”
Tex. Parks & Wildlife Dep’t v. Sawyer Tr., 354 S.W.3d 384, 393 (Tex.
2011) (citing Lain, 349 S.W.2d at 581). Specifically, a person may obtain
relief through an ultra vires suit against a government official who,
acting in his official capacity, “possesses property without authority.”
Id. In that case, the person may compel the return of the property even
when the official claims that title or possession is on the government’s
behalf. See id. The governmental entity, however, remains free to
assert its own challenge to the plaintiff’s title or seek condemnation of
the property. Lain, 349 S.W.2d at 586. The fact that both condemnation
and trespass-to-try-title actions involve title to real property does not
mean that the immunity analysis is the same for both; the two actions
implicate title to real property for substantially different reasons. In a
trespass-to-try-title action, title itself is in dispute. In a condemnation
proceeding like this one, the issue is determining just compensation for
the condemned property. We find City of Conroe more persuasive in this
context.
      Finally, we reiterate that the idea that governmental immunity
may even apply in eminent-domain proceedings is a relatively new
development.    Despite a long history of condemnation suits being
pursued against governmental entities, immunity has only recently
been raised and considered as a jurisdictional bar in such proceedings.
The Irrigation District’s assumption that those entities have always
held this previously unasserted immunity rings hollow.

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                           III. Conclusion

      We hold that sovereign immunity does not apply in eminent-
domain proceedings and that the Irrigation District is not immune from
the Improvement District’s condemnation suit. Accordingly, we reverse
the court of appeals’ judgment and remand the case to the trial court for
further proceedings.

                                        Debra H. Lehrmann
                                        Justice

OPINION DELIVERED: May 19, 2023

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