Juliff Gardens
By Third District, at Austin Texas Court of Appeals
- Release Date: 2004-03-04
- Genre: Law
Description
Appellant Juliff Gardens, L.L.C. (Juliff) appeals from a district-court judgment in favor of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (the Commission). While Juliff had an application to build a landfill in Brazoria County pending before the Commission, the legislature enacted H.B. 2912, a portion of which is codified as section 361.122 of the Texas Health and Safety Code.*fn1 The provisions of section 361.122 mandated that Juliff's application be denied. As a result, Juliff amended its application to avoid section 361.122 and subsequently brought this declaratory-judgment action seeking a determination that section 361.122 was an unconstitutional local or special law. The district court granted the Commission's motion to dismiss, ruling that the Commission had exclusive or primary jurisdiction to determine the applicability of the statute before Juliff could challenge its constitutionality. In the alternative, the district court granted the Commission's summary-judgment motion, ruling that section 361.122 was not a local or special law.
