City Of Dallas/Trinity River Project Litigation

On behalf of the City of Dallas, V&E recently defeated a court challenge to the $1 billion Trinity River renovation project. The Trinity River project represents one of the City’s most significant public works undertakings of all time. The vision for the project includes providing additional flood protection for low-income neighborhoods in south Dallas, developing lakes and other recreational facilities in the Trinity River corridor, and constructing a parkway alongside the Trinity River’s banks to alleviate traffic congestion in the City’s notorious "mixmaster" area.

Taxpayer and environmental groups opposed to the project sued the City, claiming that the City, through its ongoing dialogue with concerned local residents, engineers, and the state and federal agencies who are helping to fund the project, was changing the project from what the voters had approved when they agreed to the issuance of municipal bonds to support the project. Given that these same opponents had fought against the project during the election campaign, their claim to represent "the voters’ interests" was somewhat suspect. Nevertheless, just by filing suit, the project’s opponents succeeded in putting a halt to the City’s efforts to issue bonds because the Texas Attorney General refuses to approve bonds that are the subject of litigation, regardless of whether the claims raised in litigation are meritorious. Ultimately, if the opponents had prevailed, the City likely would have had to scrap its plans and restart the lengthy process of obtaining public approval for the renovation project.

V&E responded on behalf of the City with a declaratory judgment action under a specially-designed public finance law that allows public bodies to obtain an expedited resolution of attacks on governmental expenditures. After a lengthy hearing, the trial court upheld the City’s authority to issue the bonds and to exercise reasonable discretion when deciding how to spend the bond proceeds. The dispute focused on fundamental issues concerning the workings of a representative democracy. The arguments required the parties to litigate Texas Supreme Court precedents that are nearly a century old and about which the courts of appeals have not provided much guidance. Ultimately, V&E convinced the trial court that the proper role of a political body is to formulate policies, and the remedy that voters have if they are dissatisfied with those policies is to oust their representatives at the ballot box. In essence, the trial court would not allow a political minority to impose its will concerning public expenditures on the electorate through litigation.

Although the opponents appealed the trial court’s judgment, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment for the City and in a strong opinion validated the authority of municipalities to exercise their reasonable discretion when designing and implementing plans for public improvements. The opponents sought further review in the Texas Supreme Court, but their petition was denied.

Ray Hutchison and Orrin Harrison in V&E’s Dallas office led the team that represented the City of Dallas.