And the Texas Supreme Court Says...

The supreme court of Texas recently (well, in the last few months) made a ruling in CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS v. TRAIL ENTERPRISES, INC. D/B/A WILSON OIL COMPANY, ET AL. Of course the background of the case is important - you can read the opinion here. Basically Trail sued the City of Houston over a denial to drill a well claiming that the city had in effect made a regulatory taking. So there was a trial and the City of Houston lost and had a judgment of over 16 million dollars entered against them. But, the trial court (Harris county I think) agreed with the city that the complaint was not ripe and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Sounds great, except of course Trail appealed. The appellate court disagreed with the dismissal and ordered the judgment rendered. So the City appealed to the Texas Supreme Court and the court agreed with the Waco Appeals court that the dismissal was wrong. They also found that the appeals court erred in ordering rendition instead of remanding the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.

Essentially, this opinion just allows Houston to pursue additional procedural pleadings that had been denied by the rendition. So, it is still up in the air as to whether Houston's ordinance on drilling constituted a taking. The trial court thought so, to the tune of over 16 million dollars.

So, I am currently attempting to get (through our attorney) the facts of the trial in Harris county to use to review our ordinance. As to the judgment, we just have to wait and see what happens with Houston's other pleadings if any.

In simple terms, we are not out of the woods with respect to how we enforce our gas well ordinance, or if it is enforceable at all. While the courts have so far said we can in fact carry out regulation of wells in the city limits, they have not decided yet if it is a constitutional taking. This case at the trial court level says it is a taking. It is not finished yet.