Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of August 6, 2018.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

City of Westworth Village, Tex. v. City of White Settlement, Tex., No. 02-17-00211-CV (Aug. 9, 2018) (Sudderth, C.J., joined by Gabriel and Kerr, JJ.).

Held:  The trial court did not err by denying Appellant’s plea to the jurisdiction on Appellee’s breach of contract claim because under the analysis required by Wasson Interests, Ltd. v. City of Jacksonville, No. 17-0198, 2018 WL 2449184 (Tex. June 1, 2018), Appellant failed to show that its act of entering the economic development agreement was governmental, not proprietary, in nature.  That is, per the Wasson analysis, entering into the agreement itself was a discretionary act, and nothing showed that the agreement was undertaken in a governmental capacity when there was no evidence showing that the local retail development fostered a benefit primarily to the state or the public in general, that Appellant entered into the agreement as a branch or arm of the state, or that the economic development fostered by the agreement was sufficiently related to a governmental function as to render the act of entering the agreement governmental.