Court Opinion

ID: 9768159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:44:38.569553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:37.002646
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON REHEARING
PHILLIPS, Chief Justice,
delivered the opinion of the Court on rehearing, in which GONZALEZ, HECHT, CORNYN, SPECTOR, OWEN, BAKER and ABBOTT, Justices, join.
We did not consider in our original opinion whether our decision invalidating the Act should apply retroactively, thus requiring the Foundation to refund past assessments, or only prospectively, allowing the Foundation to retain those assessments. The general rule is that this Court’s decisions apply retroactively. See Sanchez v. Schindler, 651 S.W.2d 249, 254 (Tex.1983). However, we have the discretion to depart from this general rule where circumstances dictate that we should apply a decision prospectively. See, e.g., Carrollton-Farmers Branch Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Edgewood Indep. Sch. Dist., 826 S.W.2d 489, 518-21 (Tex.1992) (applying the three-pronged test from Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 106-07, 92 S.Ct. 349, 355-56, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), to determine that decision invalidating school finance system should apply prospectively).
The Foundation, joined by amicus curiae Farm Credit Bank of Texas, argues on rehearing that we should exercise that discretion here and limit our judgment to prospective application. In particular, the Foundation argues that our decision established a new framework for analyzing private delegations which the Foundation could not have anticipated when it was spending money or by the Bank when it extended credit to the Foundation. Requiring the Foundation to refund assessments, they say, would impose undue financial hardship on the Foundation and the Bank and unjustly enrich the growers.
We decline to consider this issue on motion for rehearing. In response to our judgment in this case, the Legislature modified sub-chapter 74D of the Texas Agriculture Code, continuing the existence of the Foundation but strengthening the oversight role of the Commissioner of Agriculture in the eradication programs. See Act of May 30, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 463. As part of these amendments, the Legislature dealt with the validation and ratification of assessments the growers approved under the statute’s former version. See id. § 1.27. The new statute “validate^], ratifie[s] and confirm[s]” assessments previously approved in the Southern Rolling Plains Zone, the Central Rolling Plains Zone, and the South Texas/Winter Garden Zone (zones not involved in these lawsuits). The statute ratifies the High Plains and Lower Rio Grande Valley assessments only for amounts actually collected prior to May 30, 1997, but not including assessments paid into the registry of the court or paid by a named plaintiff in one of these actions. See id. Thus, the appropriate forum for any challenge to the current law is in the trial court, not on motion for rehearing here.
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Appellant’s motions for rehearing are overruled.
ENOCH, J., noted his dissent.