The State of Texas v. JRJ Pusok Holdings, LLC
The Texas Supreme Court unanimously-on-the-immunity-question held that the State cannot invoke sovereign immunity to block a former landowner's statutory right to repurchase condemned property once the government decides it no longer needs the land for public use. The case traces back to a Harris County parcel on Mueschke Road in Tomball that TxDOT condemned for a Grand Parkway-area highway project; after the route was later changed, TxDOT deemed roughly 20,000 square feet of the site surplus but refused to sell it back, prompting the landowners' successor, JRJ Pusok Holdings, LLC, to sue. Justice Jane Bland authored the majority opinion, joined by five justices; Justice Young concurred, and Justice Hawkins dissented (joined by Justice Sullivan and, in part, Chief Justice Blacklock).
Why it matters
Closes off a maneuver some condemning authorities have relied on: taking land through eminent domain, later abandoning the stated public purpose, and then asserting sovereign immunity to keep property a landowner has a statutory right to buy back. For any commercial owner or developer whose land sits along a transportation, utility, or other public-works corridor, the ruling confirms that a change in project scope or routing does not leave the state free to simply retain the excess parcel -- Chapter 21 of the Texas Property Code's repurchase right survives the government's own change of plans, and county courts at law have concurrent jurisdiction to enforce it.
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