Kahana Feld Partner Elliott Wright and Senior Counsel William “Pat” Durland secured a major victory for their client with a complete dismissal of all claims by establishing that the Plaintiff failed to satisfy the Texas Tort Claims Act’s jurisdictional prerequisites through our Plea to the Jurisdiction.
Our Plea to the Jurisdiction demonstrated that governmental immunity applies unless a Plaintiff can prove a clear and unambiguous statutory waiver, and that the Plaintiff bears the burden of pleading and proving such a waiver. In this case, we showed that the Plaintiff provided no timely statutory notice as required by §101.101 of the TTCA and the City Charter’s six-month notice requirement, making jurisdiction impossible to invoke. Without proper notice—formal or actual—the court has no power to hear the case, and the defect cannot be cured by amendment.
We further established that even on the merits of the alleged waiver, the Plaintiff’s theory failed. The Plaintiff framed his claim as a “premises defect,” but the hazards he identified are not legally recognized as unreasonably dangerous conditions under governing Texas Supreme Court precedent. The “open and obvious” doctrine, along with the natural accumulation rule (holding that naturally occurring mud is not a dangerous condition), foreclosed any viable waiver of immunity. Because no premises defect existed as a matter of law, and exemplary damages are expressly barred under the TTCA, the court properly granted our plea and dismissed all claims with prejudice as to our client.
