The Texas Supreme Court has resolved two disputes over the scope of the jurisdiction of the statewide 15th Court of Appeals. In both cases, the Court concluded that the 15th Court of Appeals does not have jurisdiction.
Patrick Kelley and PMK Group, LLC v. Richard Homminga and Chippewa Construction Co., LLC (Misc. Docket No. 25-9014; March 14, 2025) was an appeal from a Galveston County judgment awarding more than $1 million in a construction dispute. Devon Energy v. Oliver arose from a DeWitt County judgment awarding about the same amount of money in a royalty dispute. Defendants noticed their appeals to the 15th Court, while at the same time acknowledging that they were not within that court’s exclusive jurisdiction under §§ 22.210 and 22.222, Government Code. Plaintiffs moved to transfer to other courts of appeals. The 15th Court denied the motion in a split decision, agreeing with Defendants that the statute granted the court general statewide jurisdiction over civil cases (and one could in fact read the statute that way). Both the Houston [1st] Court of Appeals and Corpus Christi Court of Appeals filed letters with the 15th Court disagreeing with the majority decision. The 15th Court forwarded the filings to SCOTX for a decision on the motion to transfer.
Observing that § 22.220(d)’s grant of exclusive jurisdiction over certain appeals brought by or against the state, constitutional challenges, and any other matter provided by law, as well as § 22.221’s grant of limited writ power to the court, the Court pointed to § 73.001, which directs the court to adopt rules for “transferring an appeal inappropriately filed” in the 15th Court, thus indicating that the Legislature didn’t think the 15th Court had general statewide jurisdiction. The statute further instructs SCOTX not to transfer out of the 15th Court “any case or proceeding properly filed there.” If the 15th Court had general statewide jurisdiction, SCOTX reasoned, neither of these provisions would make any sense. Consequently, “[w]hen appeals regarding matters falling outside this [exclusive] jurisdiction are noticed to the Fifteenth Court, they are ‘inappropriately filed’ and must be transferred.”
As a practical matter, the Court went on, the Legislature could not have meant for the 15th Court to have jurisdiction over every one of 5,000 civil appeals filed each year. It would take a lot more justices than the Legislature allocated to the 15th(three now, with two more coming on board soon) if that were the case. Interpreting the jurisdiction of the court that way, as the majority did, would defeat the purpose of the statute, i.e. to create a statewide court for cases of truly statewide import.
