JUSTICE GUZMAN delivered the opinion of the Court. JUSTICE BLAND did not participate in the Court’s decision. When a tax appraisal review board denies a taxing unit’s challenge to the appraisal rolls, the taxing unit is “entitled to appeal” to the district court within sixty days of the board’s order.[1] In this ad valorem tax dispute, the taxing units timely sought judicial review of a board order declining to reappraise the value of mineral-interest property claimed to be undervalued on the tax rolls. After the lower courts declined to dismiss the tax appeal under the Texas Citizens Participation Act[2] (TCPA), the affected taxpayer appealed to this Court, asserting for the first time that the trial court lacks jurisdiction over the tax appeal. In the alternative, the taxpayer argues the lower courts erroneously ruled the TCPA dismissal motion was untimely because it was not filed within sixty days after the taxing units served their original petition for judicial review.[3] Regarding the jurisdictional issue, the taxpayer contends the taxing units’ timely filed petition for judicial review is void and therefore ineffective to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction. The taxpayer charges the taxing units with hiring an attorney to act as a “tax ferret” under an unauthorized contingent-fee contract and further asserts that all actions taken on behalf of the taxing units under the legal-services contract are necessarily void, including filing the petition for judicial review. We hold that any invalidity of the legal-services contract—a matter we assume without deciding—does not invalidate the taxing units’ bona fide attempt to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction. At worst, perfection of the appeal would be defective, not void. On the TCPA issue, the taxpayer argues the taxing units’ second amended petition restarted the TCPA’s motion-filing deadline by adding new factual allegations claiming the mineral-interest property was undervalued due to taxpayer fraud. In Montelongo v. Abrea, an opinion issued today, we explain that an amended or supplemental pleading “triggers a new sixty-day period” for filing a TCPA motion to dismiss as to (1) newly added parties, (2) “new essential facts to support previously asserted claims,” or (3) “new legal claims or theories involving different elements than the claims or theories previously asserted.”[4] In this case, the taxing units’ cursory original petition for review alleged property had been undervalued and effectively omitted from the tax rolls but did not state the cause of the undervaluation or omission or assert facts implicating the taxpayer in wrongdoing. When the taxing units filed an amended pleading alleging undervaluation and omission of the taxpayers’ mineral interests resulted from taxpayer fraud, those new factual allegations commenced a new sixty-day filing period under the TCPA as to those allegations, and the taxpayers’ motion to dismiss was timely filed in response. We therefore reverse the court of appeals’ judgment and remand to the trial court for further proceedings. Background Kinder Morgan[5] owns substantial oil and gas interests in Scurry County that are subject to ad valorem property taxation.[6] Several taxing units[7]—Scurry County, Snyder Independent School District, Scurry County Junior College District d/b/a Western Texas College, and Scurry County Hospital District d/b/a Cogdell Memorial Hospital (collectively, the Taxing Units)—filed petitions before the Scurry County Appraisal Review Board (ARB) challenging (1) the appraisal value of a “category of property” in the county “but not the appraised value of a single taxpayer’s property” and (2) the “exclusion of property from the appraisal records.” Without identifying particular property or specific taxpayers, the Taxing Units asserted “Category G property,” meaning “Oil and Gas, Minerals, and other subsurface interests,” had been undervalued and “erroneously and incorrectly omitted (in toto and ab initio)” from the appraisal rolls. The Taxing Units petitioned the ARB to compel the Scurry County Appraisal District (SCAD) to reappraise Category G property in Scurry County for the current year and to back-appraise that property in all prior years as allowed by law, including the preceding five tax years. The ARB held a hearing on the challenge petitions, at which point the Taxing Units focused on the appraisal of Kinder Morgan’s property. The Taxing Units argued a substantial discrepancy existed between the appraised value of the property as determined by SCAD’s privately retained appraiser and the value the Taxing Units’ experts derived from information in Kinder Morgan’s sworn filings with federal and state governmental entities.[8] The Taxing Units observed, as a general proposition, that property undervalued on the appraisal roll due to taxpayer fraud can be viewed as “omitted” from the appraisal rolls under a theory that a fraudulently procured appraised value is deemed void ab initio. But the Taxing Units candidly acknowledged they could not determine the reason for the variance in the appraised value of Kinder Morgan’s property nor could they say what caused the alleged “error,” noting it could be due to misrepresentation, misunderstanding, or mistake on the part of the county’s appraiser. SCAD’s Chief Appraiser and its privately retained appraiser both testified at the hearing and, when questioned by SCAD’s attorney, both denied the existence of fraud or even suspicion of fraud. SCAD’s attorney further noted there was not “one iota of evidence that Kinder Morgan or . . . any other property owner defrauded the appraisal district.” The ARB denied the challenge petitions, and as authorized by Section 42.031 of the Texas Tax Code, the Taxing Units timely appealed to the district court, naming the appraisal district and Kinder Morgan as defendants.[9] In the original petition for judicial review and writ of mandamus, the Taxing Units asked the trial court “to perform a de novo review of the valuation of [Kinder Morgan's] mineral interest real property . . . and [either] fix the correct values or order the re-appraisal and back appraisal” of mineral interest property that was “omitted (in toto or ab initio).“[10] Without pleading any factual allegations, the petition described Kinder Morgan’s mineral-interest property as “erroneously and incorrectly omitted from appraisal,” stated that the trial could should determine the “accurate values,” and asserted that SCAD is required to reappraise Kinder Morgan’s mineral-interest real property. Three cases and Chapters 25 and 41 of the Tax Code were cited, without discussion, in support of these propositions. The original petition refers to Kinder Morgan only with respect to its ownership of the affected property. After answering,[11] Kinder Morgan responded with a Rule 91a motion to dismiss in which it (1) asserted that the Taxing Units failed to identify which of the two challenges from the appraisal proceeding were being pursued on appeal; (2) noted that the Taxing Units failed to identify who was responsible for the alleged appraisal error; and (3) argued that both challenges from the appraisal proceeding were subject to dismissal because the petition lacked “any facts in support of either cause of action that could establish a viable, legally cognizable right to relief or provide the Kinder Morgan Defendants with fair notice of the facts on which the claims are based.”[12] Before responding to the 91a motion, the Taxing Units amended the petition for review to expressly abandon claims pertaining to the level of appraisals of any category of property in the district and to clarify that the only issue on appeal was the exclusion of property from the appraisal record. Specifically, “as to the mineral interest real property of the Kinder Morgan Entities in Scurry County,” the amended petition stated that “there were exclusions and omissions of property, in toto and/or ab initio.” In recounting the factual basis for the contention that Kinder Morgan’s property had been undervalued and effectively omitted from the tax rolls, the Taxing Units noted that SCAD’s retained appraiser had made significant valuation errors with respect to similar mineral interest property. The Taxing Units did not assert, however, that Kinder Morgan had misrepresented information to the county appraiser, stating only that SCAD’s retained appraiser achieved a wildly different valuation of Kinder Morgan’s mineral interest property than the Taxing Units’ retained experts and the Taxing Units had “sought for many months a rational explanation for the variance.” The petition also included a new paragraph identifying Kinder Morgan as a proper party to the suit because (1) affected property owners are required parties[13] and (2) taxpayers are required “to provide accurate information and to pay their accurately calculated tax amounts.” A few weeks later, and contemporaneously with their response to the Rule 91a motion, the Taxing Units filed a second amended petition for review, which added an allegation that “[Kinder Morgan] knowingly and purposefully provided inaccurate and/or incomplete information to be relied upon by [the county's appraiser] in an effort to evade payment of taxes[.]” On receipt of this filing, Kinder Morgan withdrew its Rule 91a motion and filed a motion to dismiss under the TCPA. The TCPA dismissal motion argued that the second amended petition implicated, for the first time, Kinder Morgan’s constitutional right to speak freely and petition the government.[14] The Taxing Units objected to the timing of the TCPA motion, arguing that the motion had to be filed within sixty days after service of the original petition for judicial review because that filing provided fair notice that Kinder Morgan’s communications with respect to the appraised value of its property were at issue. The TCPA motion was filed 110 days after service of the original petition for judicial review, 53 days from the first amended petition, and 34 days from the second amended petition. The trial court denied the motion as untimely because more than sixty days had elapsed from service of the original petition. In a letter explaining the ruling, the court concluded that Kinder Morgan’s “only purported exercise of ‘free speech’ . . . is its rendition and valuation of mineral properties for ad valorem tax purposes,” which “has been at issue since [the Taxing Units'] initiation of these [appeal] proceedings.” The court also summarily rejected Kinder Morgan’s bid for a “good cause” extension of the filing deadline.[15] On interlocutory appeal,[16] the court of appeals affirmed, holding that the original petition’s allegation of erroneous and incorrect omissions from the appraisal record gave fair notice of all possible theories that could cause such an omission.[17] Citing the three cases referenced in the original petition, the court explained that “omitted” property includes (1) property improperly exempted from the tax roll and (2) property undervalued due to taxpayer fraud.[18] The court found the original petition met the fair notice pleading standard on the basis that taxpayer fraud is a “subset of the broad allegations asserted in the original petition.”[19] In further concluding that Kinder Morgan failed to establish good cause for an extension, the court noted that Kinder Morgan chose to file a Rule 91a motion rather than filing special exceptions to require the Taxing Units to plead with greater specificity.[20] The court opined that the “intentional choice to proceed with serial motions, rather than expeditiously seeking all relief to which they might have been entitled, caused significant delay in the resolution of the case.”[21] Kinder Morgan filed a petition for review in this Court, urging that its TCPA motion was timely because (1) the TCPA requires more than mere notice pleading,[22] and (2) even if mere notice pleading is sufficient, the original petition did not provide fair notice that the Taxing Units were relying on a factual theory of taxpayer fraud, so that petition did not trigger the TCPA filing deadline with respect to any claim based on the fraud allegations. In the alternative, Kinder Morgan claims good cause exists for an extension of the TCPA filing deadline because its first-filed Rule 91a dismissal motion substantively served as special exceptions to the Taxing Units’ original petition and, in fact, prompted the Taxing Units to twice amend their petition to plead with greater specificity. In its reply to the Taxing Units’ response, Kinder Morgan also raised a new issue it presents as a threshold matter of subject-matter jurisdiction requiring dismissal of the judicial-review suit without regard to timeliness of the TCPA motion. As the merits brief elaborates, Kinder Morgan contends that the Taxing Units’ attorney was employed under a “tax ferret contract” that is void because it provides for compensation on a contingent-fee basis without approval from appropriate state officials. Kinder Morgan argues that the effect of a void legal-services contract is that all services the attorney provided under the contract, including filing the petition for judicial review, are similarly void and without effect. Accordingly, Kinder Morgan takes the position that no appeal from the ARB’s order was timely perfected under Section 42.031 of the Tax Code and, as a result, the trial court’s jurisdiction has not been timely invoked.[23] Because the validity of counsel’s employment contract was neither preserved in the courts below nor fairly included in issues that were, we consider the matter only to the extent it implicates subject-matter jurisdiction over the judicial-review suit.[24] Discussion Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Under separately executed contracts, the Taxing Units hired the same attorney to “investigate and review potential errors/irregularities and to pursue any Claims identified against Commercial Entities . . . who may be responsible [for] inaccurate valuations of mineral interest real property and erroneous or insufficient ad valorem tax payment amounts[.]” The attorney-employment contracts set counsel’s compensation at 20% of gross recoveries. The terms of the contracts are undisputed, but the nature of the services, the validity of the contracts, and the effect of any invalidity on the otherwise timely initiated Section 42.031 appeal are hotly contested. The Parties Arguments Kinder Morgan argues that (1) the Taxing Units’ attorney was engaged as a “ tax ferret” under unapproved—and therefore void—contingent-fee agreements, (2) a void contract cannot be ratified by the Taxing Units, so the attorney’s actions under the tax ferret contracts also cannot be ratified, and (3) the attorney’s filings on behalf of the Taxing Units were therefore ineffective to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction.[25] In arguing the attorney-employment contracts are void, Kinder Morgan contends that, except in a limited circumstance not applicable here, the Taxing Units had no express or implied authority to engage a so-called tax ferret on a contingent-fee basis and one of the taxing units, Scurry County, had no authority to procure legal services on a contingent-fee basis without prior review and approval by the State Comptroller. For its jurisdictional challenge, Kinder Morgan contends the Taxing Units did not perfect their administrative appeal because they purported to prosecute that appeal through a void contract with their attorney. A “tax ferret contract” has been defined as an agreement to locate property that has been omitted from the tax rolls.[26] Public policy concerns arise when a tax ferret contract places a bounty on recoveries. Such contingent-fee engagements provide the potential for excessive and unreasonable compensation out of tax revenues that would otherwise support the public fisc.[27] Contingent-fee arrangements also provide pernicious incentives to maximize recovery in ways that may be abusive, coercive, or harassing. Fifty years have elapsed since the last time this Court had occasion to consider whether an impermissible tax ferret contract was in play,[28] and before that, we decided only one other contingent-fee tax ferret case.[29] Both opinions were issued long before the Tax Code was enacted in 1979. Because contingent-fee arrangements can be unfair and unjust to the public, the Legislature has expressed a special interest in closely regulating certain contingent-fee contracts between governmental entities and private parties. For example, Section 6.30 of the Tax Code permits a taxing unit to “contract with any competent attorney to represent the unit to enforce the collection of delinquent taxes” provided that “[t]he attorney’s compensation is set in the contract” and “does not exceed 20 percent of the amount of delinquent tax, penalty, and interest collected.”[30] A contract that does not conform to those requirements is void.[31] In 1999, the Legislature also amended Chapter 2254, Subchapter C of the Government Code[32] to add procedural safeguards for contingent-fee agreements between governmental entities and private parties with respect to legal services, excluding those contracts governed by Section 6.30 (among others).[33] Since 2007, and at the time the Taxing Units engaged counsel in this matter, no “public agency”—as specially defined—could execute a legal-services contract on a contingent-fee basis absent the Comptroller’s review and approval.[34] In 2019, more than a year after the Taxing Units hired counsel in this case, the Legislature expanded and modified that prohibition by amending Subchapter C to require all political subdivisions to obtain the Attorney General’s approval before a contingent-fee contract for legal services is effective and enforceable.[35] At the same time, the Legislature added another provision providing that a contract violating Subchapter C “is void as against public policy, and no fees may be paid to any person under the contract or under any theory of recovery for work performed in connection with a void contract.”[36] This section of the Government Code also purports to insulate any contract approved by the Attorney General from later being declared void.[37] The Taxing Units take umbrage at the suggestion that a legal services contract to investigate the undervaluation of taxable property is properly characterized as a “tax ferret contract” because even though property undervalued due to taxpayer fraud might be considered “omitted” from the tax rolls, correcting an undervaluation is not the same as uncovering property that has been entirely overlooked by the taxing authorities. But the real nub of disagreement concerns the express or implied authority, and necessity of prior approval, to engage such services (however they are labeled) on a contingent-fee basis and the effect of any noncompliance with statutory requisites on the Taxing Units’ ability to maintain the judicial-review suit. As to those matters, the Taxing Units assert, among other arguments, that the contracts are valid because Section 6.30 expressly permits contingent-fee agreements to collect “delinquent taxes” without prior approval, and (2) the provisions in Chapter 2254 requiring political subdivisions to obtain approval for contingent-fee contracts are inapplicable because they were enacted after the attorney-employment contracts’ effective dates. Even if some or all of the contingent-fee contracts are void, as Kinder Morgan asserts, the Taxing Units maintain that the only effect would be to deny counsel compensation under the contracts, not to prohibit counsel’s continued representation under different compensation terms nor to invalidate actions taken in the scope of that representation. Because this issue was raised for the first time on appeal, we consider only whether a jurisdictional impediment bars the Taxing Units’ judicial-review suit.[38] To that end, we need not determine whether counsel is a tax ferret, whether any or all of the contingent-fee contracts are void for want of Comptroller or Attorney General approval, or whether counsel is disqualified from continued representation on that basis or any other because even if the contracts are void, that circumstance alone does not nullify the Taxing Units’ bona fide attempt to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction over their appeal from the ARB’s order denying the challenge petitions. Accordingly, we assume, without deciding, that the Taxing Units engaged legal counsel under impermissible contingent-fee engagements. Defective But Not Void The Tax Code entitles taxing units “to challenge before the appraisal review board . . . an exclusion of property from the appraisal records”[39] and has been construed as “provid[ing] a remedy for an erroneous appraisal based on property that escaped taxation because of a void assessment arising from taxpayer fraud.”[40] A taxing unit is “entitled to appeal” the appraisal review board’s order determining the challenge.[41] Kinder Morgan does not challenge the Taxing Units’ standing or competency to appeal. Nor does Kinder Morgan contend the petition for judicial review is invalid as a perfecting instrument for any other reason than in regard to the attorney’s authority to sign and file it on the Taxing Units’ behalf. Likewise, Kinder Morgan does not contend that the petition for judicial review was filed in anything other than a good-faith effort to perfect an appeal and invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction. In Grand Prairie Independent School District v. Southern Parts Imports, Inc., we held that “a court of appeals may not dismiss an appeal when the appellant filed the wrong instrument required to perfect the appeal without giving the appellant an opportunity to correct the error.”[42] There, the appellant had filed a notice of appeal instead of an appeal bond.[43] The court of appeals denied leave to file an appeal bond, as required to perfect the appeal, and dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction.[44] We reversed and held that “[a] court of appeals has jurisdiction over any appeal where the appellant files an instrument that ‘was filed in a bona fide attempt to invoke appellate court jurisdiction,’”[45] and if a document filed under such circumstances is faulty, the appellate court must afford the appellant an opportunity to amend or refile any instrument required by the law or our rules to perfect the appeal.[46] The critical inquiry in determining whether an appeal has been perfected is not whether there has been an error of form or substance but whether the instrument was filed in a good-faith attempt to appeal.[47] Application of the foregoing principle to the circumstances here is consistent with case law recognizing that court documents filed by a nonlawyer on behalf of a litigant are considered to be “defective but not void, and may be effective for certain purposes[.]“[48]For this reason, even if the Taxing Units’ lawyer had no authority to act as their lawyer, the Taxing Units are not deprived of their statutory right to appeal by voidness of the legal-services engagement, if any. A bona fide effort to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction may be defective, but it is not void, and the proceedings cannot be dismissed without affording an opportunity to refile a proper instrument, if necessary. Our conclusion that any lack of authority does not perforce invalidate the timely filed petition for judicial review comports with Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 12, which Kinder Morgan invoked to challenge the same counsel on the same basis in a different judicial-review proceeding.[49] While Rule 12 requires the trial court to dismiss counsel who fails to show authority to prosecute or defend the proceeding, pleadings filed by any such counsel are not nullified and may only be stricken “if no person who is authorized to prosecute or defend appears.”[50] Here, the Taxing Units have a statutory right to appeal the ARB’s decision on their challenges and hired a licensed attorney to file the documents necessary to exercise their statutory right. Even assuming the attorney-employment contracts are void, deeming an otherwise timely and properly perfected appeal to be unperfected would elevate form over substance, contrary to the principles discussed above.[51] If counsel is disqualified and if pleadings are stricken, consequences may ensue, and those consequences could have the same effect that Kinder Morgan seeks to achieve here. But there is a legally significant difference between a pleading that has been stricken and one that was void ab initio. The petition for judicial review filed on behalf of the Taxing Units to perfect their statutory right to appeal is not void, and to the extent it is properly characterized as defective, the appeal could not be dismissed without affording the Taxing Units a reasonable opportunity to refile the necessary perfecting instrument.[52] Finding no jurisdictional impediment to reaching the merits of this appeal, we turn now to the issue decided by the courts below: whether Kinder Morgan’s TCPA motion to dismiss was timely filed. TCPA Motion to Dismiss The TCPA’s purpose is to safeguard “the constitutional rights of persons to petition, speak freely, associate freely, and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law” without impairing a person’s right “to file meritorious lawsuits for demonstrable injury.”[53] Among the balancing measures the Act employs is a deadline for seeking dismissal under the statute. Absent an extension,[54] a TCPA motion must be filed within sixty days after service of a “legal action” that “is based on, relates to, or is in response to a party’s exercise of the right of free speech, right to petition, or right of association[.]“[55]In the applicable version of the statute, a “legal action” is broadly defined as “a lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim or any other judicial pleading or filing that requests legal or equitable relief.”[56] The issue in this case is whether the Taxing Units’ original petition for judicial review pleaded a “legal action” that triggered the TCPA’s sixty-day filing window with respect to the subsequently pleaded taxpayer-fraud allegations or whether the assertion of those allegations in an amended petition restarted the clock. Kinder Morgan contends the second amended petition asserted a new legal action by adding a new “cause of action.” The TCPA does not define the term “cause of action,” but “the generally accepted meaning of that phrase refers to the ‘fact or facts entitling one to institute and maintain an action, which must be alleged and proved in order to obtain relief.’”[57] In our contemporaneously issued opinion in Montelongo v. Abrea, we examine a TCPA case involving an amended petition that added new legal claims based on the same essential facts that had been alleged in the original petition.[58] This case presents the inverse scenario—an amended petition that added new factual allegations to support a previously asserted legal claim under the Tax Code—but Montelongo is nonetheless instructive here. In answering whether, and under what circumstances, an amended or supplemental pleading restarts the sixty-day period for filing a TCPA dismissal motion, Montelongo explains that an amended or supplemental pleading that asserts the same legal claims or theories by and against the same parties and based on the same essential facts alleged in a prior pleading asserts the same ‘legal action’ to which the sixty-day period previously applied and thus does not trigger a new sixty-day period for filing a dismissal motion.[59] But if an amended or supplemental pleading adds a new party or parties, (2) alleges new essential facts to support previously asserted claims, or (3) asserts new legal claims or theories involving different elements than the claims or theories previously asserted, the new pleading asserts a new legal action and triggers a new sixty-day period as to those new parties, facts, or claims.[60] Applying Montelongo here yields the conclusion that a new sixty-day window commenced from the addition of facts alleging taxpayer-fraud because the original petition did not put Kinder Morgan on notice that the Taxing Units were implicating Kinder Morgan in wrongdoing with respect to the reappraisal claim. The factual allegations of taxpayer fraud added in the second amended petition are “new essential facts” to support the claim of “erroneous[] and incorrect[]” omission of property asserted in the original petition. Taxable property that is considered omitted ab initio from the taxing rolls due to taxpayer fraud is an alternative theory that could support the reappraisal request the Taxing Units seek. But, as the court of appeals acknowledged, it is not the only theory. More significantly, charging the taxpayer with “knowingly and purposefully provid[ing] inaccurate and/or incomplete information to be relied upon by [the county's appraiser] in an effort to evade payment of taxes” is not a subset of essential factual allegations in the original petition because the original petition contains no essential factual allegations at all to support the reappraisal claim. Rather, the petition asserts a broad claim for reappraisal without any of the facts that must be alleged or proved to obtain relief. The original petition did not fairly plead a cause of action for reappraisal based on taxpayer fraud. A cause of action is sufficiently pleaded only if the petition gives fair notice of the claim involved.[61] “The key inquiry is whether the opposing party ‘can ascertain from the pleading the nature and basic issues of the controversy and what testimony will be relevant.’”[62] Our notice-pleading rules require pleadings to not only give notice “of the claim and the relief sought” but also of the essential factual allegations.[63] “The purpose of this rule is to give the opposing party information sufficient to enable him to prepare a defense.”[64] To paraphrase from Montelongo, providing only fair notice of claims does not provide fair notice of the essential factual allegations supporting those claims.[65] The original petition for judicial review pleaded that: [M]ineral interest real property of the Kinder Morgan Entities in Scurry County was erroneously and incorrectly omitted from appraisal for years 2018, and 2013–2017 and [] accurate values should be determined by [the trial court]. Beck & Masten Pontiac-GMC, Inc. v. Harris Co. Appraisal Dist., 830 S.W.2d 291, 294-95 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1992, writ denied)[.] [] The Taxing Units also assert that re-appraisal for year 2018 and back-appraisal for years 2013–2017 is required of the Scurry County Appraisal District as to the mineral interest real property of the Kinder Morgan Entities in Scurry County. Atascosa Co. v. Atascosa Co. Appraisal Dist., 990 S.W.2d 255, 257 (Tex. 1999); In re ExxonMobil Corp., 153 S.W.3d 605, 619 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2004 [sic]); Tex. Tax Code Ch. 25, 41. . . . . The omission of properties, in toto or ab initio, was brought to the attention and knowledge of the Chief Appraiser of the Scurry County Appraisal District as to the mineral interest real property of the Kinder Morgan Entities in Scurry County for the time period 2013–2018. Despite having a mandatory and ministerial duty to re-appraise [sic] and back-appraise the mineral interest real property, the Chief Appraiser and the Scurry County Appraisal District have failed to take such action. Noticeably absent are any allegations with respect to Kinder Morgan other than its identification as the property owner—a fact that makes it an essential party to the proceeding but does not inform the factual basis supporting the reappraisal claim. The petition includes no allegations that the alleged tax deficiency resulted from any conduct on Kinder Morgan’s part, let alone that any rights protected by the TCPA might be implicated.[66] Just as essential factual allegations may give rise to a variety of different legal theories, legal theories may be supported by a variety of different factual scenarios. The pleading of a legal theory, without more, does not provide notice of the facts that could be pleaded to support that theory. For that reason, we cannot agree with the court of appeals that a theory of taxpayer fraud being a subset of potential omission claims satisfied the notice-pleading rules and, therefore, we cannot agree that the amended pleading added no new essential facts. Nor is it sufficient, as the Taxing Units suggest, that Kinder Morgan could (or should) have deduced from extrinsic sources that the Taxing Units were pursuing reappraisal based on Kinder Morgan’s alleged fraud in its communications with the appraisal district. The original petition cites Beck & Masten, Exxon Mobile, and Atascosa without elaboration. Beck & Masten allowed the appraisal district to reappraise omitted property due to fraud committed by the property owner.[67] In ExxonMobil, the court of appeals required local taxing units to pursue allegations of taxpayer fraud before the appraisal review board rather than as common-law fraud claims in the district court because the review board had exclusive original jurisdiction over the taxing authorities’ valuation claims and “failing a satisfactory result at the appraisal review board, de novo judicial review [is] available.”[68] Atascosa stands for the proposition that property omitted due to the appraiser’s error of classifying it as exempt can be back-appraised for the five previous years.[69] Both Beck & Masten and ExxonMobil involve a taxing unit’s claim for back-appraisal based on a taxpayer’s alleged misrepresentations. But the citation of these cases does not equate to fair notice of the essential factual allegations giving rise to a claim for relief because, as we have held, [i]n determining whether a cause of action was pled, plaintiff’s pleadings must be adequate for the court to be able, from an examination of the plaintiff’s pleadings alone, to ascertain with reasonable certainty and without resorting to information aliunde[70] the elements of plaintiff’s cause of action and the relief sought with sufficient information upon which to base a judgment.[71] The Taxing Units’ original petition fails to give Kinder Morgan fair notice of the essential facts supporting an allegation that the alleged omission resulted from Kinder Morgan’s conduct. Based on the allegations in the original petition alone, Kinder Morgan could not have ascertained that the basic issue of the controversy was its alleged misrepresentations to SCAD’s appraiser.[72] The court of appeals and trial court therefore erred in holding that Kinder Morgan’s TCPA motion to dismiss, which was filed within sixty days after service of a legal action asserting new essential facts, was untimely. Conclusion We hold that Kinder Morgan’s TCPA motion to dismiss was timely filed. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment and remand to the trial court without reaching Kinder Morgan’s alternative argument that good cause exists for an extension. Our conclusion that Kinder Morgan satisfied the TCPA’s timeliness requirement should not be construed as a comment on the TCPA’s applicability to the legal action. That issue was not presented on appeal and remains to be determined. Eva M. Guzman Justice OPINION DELIVERED: April 30, 2021
