Court Opinion

ID: 9678865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:34:36.867249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:08.578794
License: Public Domain

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
This dissenting opinion draws into sharp focus the distinction between an appellate court’s opinion and its judgment. The draft opinion, first placed in circulation on July 13, 2007, was rejected by a majority of the Court, not because of the opinion, but because of the judgment. The proposed judgment was to remand the proceeding to the trial court.
Since that date Justice Vance has struggled valiantly to draft a judgment that will properly render the appeal from the information in the record before this Court. Justice Vance even requested both parties to propose a judgment. All this effort, and its attendant delay, has not resulted in a judgment the Court feels comfortable with. The judgment needed in this proceeding is very complex and we do not have the information needed to do it. In recognition of this, and the probability that the Court’s judgment is not entirely accurate *111or complete, the Court invites the parties to file a motion for rehearing to inform the Court regarding needed modification or corrections. Maj. Op. at pg. 110, fn. 4. This should be enough to inform the Court that we should not attempt to render judgment in this appeal.
Further, because the trial court judgment being reviewed was a post-jury trial, prejudgment, grant of a plea to the jurisdiction, I simply do not know what other issues may have been left pending and that are now appropriate for the trial court’s initial consideration that were not a proper subject for this appeal.1 Thus, the procedural posture of the proceeding, in my opinion, necessitates a remand so the trial court can deal with those unresolved issues.
I do not know why the Court has, in this instance, struggled so to render a judgment rather than remand the proceeding. The complexities of the judgment needed to resolve this dispute and the uncertainties of what is not available to us leave no doubt in my mind that the proper judgment for this Court to render is a judgment which remands the proceeding to the trial court for further proceedings.
I therefore respectfully dissent from the Court’s judgment.

. There are several issues that were not resolved due, in part, to the procedural posture in which this proceeding is being decided. In this regulatory taking case, the charge submitted to the jury leaves open the question of whether it was a total taking (denied the owner of all economically viable use of their property) and, if not, whether it substantially interfered with Trail’s rights to use and enjoy its property. See Mayhew v. Town of Sunnyvale, 964 S.W.2d 922, 935 (Tex.1998). Also unresolved is the question of whether the accommodation doctrine would apply to a "regulatory use" of the surface and thus would require an evaluation of other alternatives to direct drilling. See Texas Genco, L.P. v. Valence Operating Co., 187 S.W.3d 118, 121-122 (Tex.App.-Waco 2006, pet. denied); see also Maguire Oil Co. v. City of Houston, 243 S.W.3d 714 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2007, no pet. h.) (horizontal drilling in same area unsuccessful). Because the trial court erroneously determined it had no jurisdiction, these issues, and a plethora of other issues, were not presented to us for resolution and could impact the judgment that should ultimately be rendered.