AUSTIN (Legal Newsline) -- Texas' highest court has ruled in favor of San Patricio County in a dispute over property taxes between two counties in the Corpus Christi Bay area.
State Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, leading the panel of the Texas Supreme Court, issued a 32-page ruling Oct. 12, as part of the petition for the writ of mandamus, filed by Occidental Chemical Corporation, Oxy Ingleside Energy Center LLC, Oxy Ingleside LPG Terminal LLC and Oxy Ingleside Oil Terminal LLC.
Oxy filed the writ regarding the situation of a commercial pier it runs in the Corpus Christi area that crosses county boundaries, lying between San Patricio and Nueces counties.
The conflict was that Oxy was paying for two different property taxes in two counties for the exact same property.
The legal action resulted from a 2017 statute where, as of the ruling, "the legislature enacted, and the governor signed into law, a statute authorizing property owners subject to the multiple taxation to petition this court directly to determine which county is owed the taxes."
Oxy's piers extend from mainland of San Patricio County to the waters of the Corpus Christi Bay, located in Nueces County. Both facilities are used to load oil and industrial chemicals into tankers.
In his ruling, Hecht considered "that the right to construct docks, piers, and similar facilities from the shore into the water springs from the ownership of the upland property bordering the shore, rather than from the submerged lands on which portions of those facilities are constructed," giving San Patricio the right to collect property tax from Oxy.
Justices Jeffrey Boyd and Jimmy Blacklock dissented of the judgment.
Citing a 2009 lawsuit between the two counties filed at the Refugio County court, Boyd said in his dissenting opinion that that court "has scheduled a hearing to resolve that very issue on summary-judgment motions on Oct. 24, 2018, just 12 days after the court intervenes," and, as a result, "the record presents no 'strong and special reason' for this court to interfere with the ordinary litigation process on an artificially rushed timeline to resolve a dispute the trial court is—as one might say—fixing to resolve."
Texas Supreme Court Case number 18-0660