O P I N I O NDuring Hurricane Harvey, the San Jacinto River Authority released water from Lake Conroe into the San Jacinto River. Owners of homes that flooded in Kingwood, Texas have sued the River Authority in the district courts of Harris County, seeking compensation for their inverse-condemnation and statutory takings claims. The River Authority filed Rule 91a motions to dismiss these three substantively identical lawsuits, which were denied. The River Authority now seeks interlocutory review.Because the Legislature has given the Harris County civil courts at law exclusive jurisdiction over inverse-condemnation claims, the district courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction over those claims. The district courts do, however, have subject-matter jurisdiction over the homeowners’ statutory takings claims, and we affirm the denials of the motions to dismiss on grounds of governmental immunity, because the homeowners have pleaded sufficient facts to demonstrate that the takings claims have a basis in law and fact.BackgroundThe San Jacinto River Authority is a water conservation and reclamation district created in 1937.[1] Its functions include providing for the control, storage, preservation, distribution, conservation, and reclamation of water, including floodwater.[2] The River Authority also may control, abate, or change any shortage or harmful excess of water.[3]In 1973, the River Authority constructed a dam across the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, resulting in the formation of a reservoir named Lake Conroe. The River Authority now operates the dam and other infrastructure at Lake Conroe.The homeowners in these interlocutory appeals allege that during Hurricane Harvey in late August 2017, the River Authority released rising water from Lake Conroe into the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, causing or exacerbating the downstream flooding of their homes in Kingwood. They allege three causes of action against the River Authority: inverse condemnation of their real and personal property; inverse condemnation by an “inundation, flood, flowage or drainage easement” over their property; and a statutory takings claim under Government Code section 2007.021. The only difference among the claims of the various homeowners at this stage is the varying physical location of their real property, and that factor is not a material difference for purposes of any of the legal issues presented by these interlocutory appeals. Many similar suits have been filed and currently are pending in various Harris County trial courts, including the county civil courts at law. In these particular cases, the River Authority filed Rule 91a motions to dismiss the lawsuits as lacking any basis in law or fact. As a political subdivision of the state,[4] it asserted governmental immunity as a ground for dismissal. The trial courts denied the motions. On appeal,[5] the River Authority raises two issues. In the first issue, raised for the first time on appeal, it contends that the Harris County district courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction over the inverse-condemnation claims because exclusive jurisdiction belongs to the Harris County civil courts at law. In the second issue, the River Authority asserts that the homeowners failed to allege sufficient facts to establish the elements of a takings claim and thereby demonstrate a waiver of immunity.AnalysisI. Subject-matter jurisdiction over Harris County inverse-condemnation claimsSubject-matter jurisdiction is essential to a court’s authority to decide a case, cannot be waived, and may be raised for the first time on appeal.[6]A. Inverse condemnationThe River Authority asserts for the first time on appeal that the Harris County district courts lack jurisdiction over the inverse-condemnation claims because the Harris County county civil courts at law have exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over such claims pursuant to Government Code subsection 25.1032(c). That statute provides:A county civil court at law has exclusive jurisdiction in Harris County of eminent domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse, if the amount in controversy in a statutory proceeding does not exceed the amount provided by Section 25.0003(c) in civil cases. Notwithstanding Section 21.013, Property Code, a party initiating a condemnation proceeding in Harris County may file a petition with the district clerk when the amount in controversy exceeds the amount provided by Section 25.0003(c). The amount in controversy is the amount of the bona fide offer made by the entity with eminent domain authority to acquire the property from the property owner voluntarily.Inverse-condemnation claims and statutory condemnation claims are distinct categories of eminent-domain proceedings.[7] A statutory eminent-domain or condemnation proceeding under the Property Code involves the government’s acquisition of real property.[8] An inverse-condemnation action is a constitutional claim in which the property owner asserts that an entity with eminent-domain power intentionally performed acts that resulted in a “taking” of the property for public use, without formally condemning the property.[9] A claimant seeking recovery for inverse condemnation must prove that the governmental entity intentionally took or damaged property for public use, or that the governmental entity was substantially certain that would be the result.[10] Unlike inverse- condemnation claims,[11] a statutory condemnation proceeding requires an entity with eminent-domain authority to make a bona fide offer to acquire the property from the owner voluntarily.[12]Generally, Texas district courts and county courts at law have concurrent jurisdiction in eminent-domain cases.[13] Harris County is an exception. Before September 1, 2015, county civil courts at law had exclusive jurisdiction of all eminent-domain proceedings in Harris County. The former statute provided: “A county civil court at law has exclusive jurisdiction in Harris County of eminent domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse, regardless of the amount in controversy.”[14] For cases filed on or after September 1, 2015, the Legislature modified the subject-matter jurisdiction of Harris County courts with respect to eminent-domain cases by amending subsection 25.1032(c) as follows:A county civil court at law has exclusive jurisdiction in Harris County of eminent domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse, if the amount in controversy in a statutory proceeding does not exceed the amount provided by Section 25.0003(c) in civil cases. Notwithstanding Section 21.013, Property Code, a party initiating a condemnation proceeding in Harris County may file a petition with the district clerk when the amount in controversy exceeds the amount provided by Section 25.0003(c). The amount in controversy is the amount of the bona fide offer made by the entity with eminent domain authority to acquire the property from the property owner voluntarily [regardless of the amount in controversy].[15]The River Authority contends that this statute gives the Harris County civil courts at law exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over the inverse-condemnation claims. In response, the homeowners assert that under the 2015 amendment, the Harris County district courts have subject-matter jurisdiction over their inverse- condemnation claims—and that the Harris County civil courts at law do not have exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction—because in this case “there is no statutory proceeding under the Texas Property Code and there is no bona fide offer at all, much less one for less than $200,000.00, both of which are prerequisites for invoking exclusive County Court at Law jurisdiction” under subsection 25.1032(c).[16]We disagree with the homeowners’ interpretation. Before the 2015 amendment, Harris County civil courts at law had exclusive jurisdiction over all eminent-domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse. The 2015 amendment altered the exclusivity of the jurisdiction of the county civil courts at law under the prior law by carving out an exception that applies “if the amount in controversy in a statutory proceeding does not exceed the amount provided by Section 25.0003(c) in civil cases.” By its terms, the exception to the exclusivity of the jurisdiction of the county civil courts at law embraces only one category of eminent-domain proceedings: statutory condemnation proceedings in which the condemnor’s bona fide offer exceeds $200,000. In this category, the Harris County district courts and county civil courts at law have concurrent jurisdiction. In all other eminent-domain proceedings—inverse-condemnation proceedings and statutory condemnation proceedings in which the condemnor’s bona fide offer does not exceed $200,000— the county civil courts at law maintain exclusive jurisdiction.The statute as amended cannot be plausibly read, as the homeowners suggest, to make all of the “exclusive jurisdiction” bestowed on the county civil courts at law conditioned on the existence of a bona fide offer made by the condemnor in an amount under $200,000. That would negate the effect of the exclusive jurisdiction including proceedings “both statutory and inverse” because the language relating to “the amount in controversy in a statutory proceeding” will never apply to an inverse (i.e. non-statutory) proceeding. Instead, the only interpretation that gives effect to all parts of the statute limits the application of the “if” clause—whether characterized as a condition of or an exception to the exclusive jurisdiction vested in Harris County civil courts at law over “eminent domain proceedings, both statutory and inverse”—to statutory proceedings, as the plain text requires. Earlier laws can inform the interpretation that otherwise would be given to later-enacted laws,[17] and the 2015 amendment should be construed “to contain that permissible meaning which fits most logically and comfortably into the body of both previously and subsequently enacted law.”[18] The original statute vested exclusive jurisdiction over inverse-condemnation claims filed in Harris County in the county civil courts at law, and the 2015 amendment did not unequivocally repeal that provision.[19] We conclude that the only fair reading of subsection 25.1032(c) as amended is that the exclusive jurisdiction of the Harris County civil courts at law in eminent domain proceedings, which applies in circumstances “both statutory and inverse,” has been modified to carve out an exception for statutory condemnation proceedings in which the condemnor has made a bona fide offer exceeding $200,000. Those excepted claims may be filed in a Harris County district court.This interpretation is consistent with the 2015 amendment’s deletion of the words “regardless of the amount in controversy.” The Harris County civil courts at law thus maintain their exclusive jurisdiction over all inverse-condemnation claims and over statutory condemnation proceedings in which the condemnor’s bona fide offer is no more than $200,000, and the Harris County civil courts at law and the Harris County district courts have concurrent jurisdiction over statutory condemnation proceedings in which the condemnor’s bona fide offer is more than $200,000.[20]B. Statutory takings claims
