CourtListener 10662005

Gesamter Gesetzestext

E-filed in the Office of the Clerk
for the Business Court of Texas

10/30/2024 10:46 AM

Accepted by: Beverly Crumley
Case Number: 24-BC01B-0005

The Business Court of Texas,
1st Division

ENERGY TRANSFER LP (formerly
known as ENERGY TRANSFER
OPERATING, L.P.) and ETC TEXAS
PIPELINE LTD., Plaintiffs,

CULBERSON MIDSTREAM LLC,
CULBERSON MIDSTREAM
EQUITY, LLC, MOONTOWER
RESOURCES GATHERINGS, LLC,
MOONTOWER RESOURCES
OPERATING, LLC, and
MOONTOWER RESOURCES WI,
LLC, Defendants

Cause No. 24-BC01B-0005

PM (Or OM GM MD GG ) GH GH WP

OPINION AND ORDER

Before the court is defendants’ motion to remand this case.! The court

grants that motion because plaintiffs filed this suit on April 8, 2022, but this

1 Although defendants’ October 10, 2024, filings is captioned, “Defendants’ Brief
in Support of Remand,” their conclusion and prayer objects to this court’s authority to hear
this case and asked this court to remand the case to the district court. Because the
defendants’ brief in support of remand is in substance a motion to remand, the court treats
court does not have authority over cases filed before September 1, 2024. Act
of May 25, 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., ch. 380, §§ 8, 2023 Tex. Sess. Law Serv.
919, 929 (H.B. 19).

I. Background
On April 8, 2022, Energy Transfer LP; Energy Transfer Operating, L.P.;

and ETC Texas Pipeline, Ltd. sued Culberson Midstream LLC; Culberson
Midstream Equity, LLC; and Moontower Resources Gathering, LLC in the
193rd_ District Court of Dallas, Texas. Plaintiffs asserted declaratory
judgment and contract breach claims regarding a gas gathering and processing
agreement. Thereafter, the defendants appeared. The district court’s docket
sheet shows fifty-seven pages of district and appellate court activity from
April 8, 2022, until August 31, 2024.

Plaintiffs removed the case to this court on September 30, 2024. Their
removal appendix filed the next day contains eighteen volumes spread over six
.pdf files. They later filed supplemental appendices.

On October 1st, this court requested briefs regarding what effect H.B.

19, § 8 has on this court’s authority to hear this case. H.B. 19, § 1’s operative

it as such. Verburgt v. Dorner, 959 S.W.2d 615, 617 (Tex. 1997) (treat a pleading’s
substance over form).

Opinion and Order, Page 2
sections are codified as Government Code §§ 25A.001-25A.020. Gov’T CODE
§§ 25A.001-25A.020.

Nine days later, defendants moved for remand asserting two arguments:
(i) this case is not removable under § 25A.006 because H.B. 19, § 8’s plain
text means that chapter 25A is restricted to actions commenced on or after
September 1, 2024, thus precluding application to this 2022 case; and (ii)
applying H.B. 19 retroactively would be unconstitutional.

Plaintiffs responded with these arguments:

First, the plain text of H.B. 19, § 8 shows no prohibition to the

removal of cases, only an affirmation of this Court’s ability to
start accepting cases on September 1, 2024.

Second, H.B. 19 (including § 8) is a procedural, as opposed to
substantive, statute; accordingly, its removal process should
apply to ongoing, pre-September 1, 2024 [sic] cases.

And third, when the Legislature has excluded cases of a certain
age from a new statutory scheme, it used specific language that
is not in H.B. 19, § 8.

Defendants replied with statutory text, a public policy, legislative
history, and other arguments.
Neither side contends that there are disputed fact issues, and the court

does not find any. Nor do the parties contend that H.B. 19 is ambiguous on

Opinion and Order, Page 3
this issue, and the court does not discern any such ambiguity. Finally, no party
requested oral argument.

II. Analysis

A. Overview
The issue is whether H.B. 19, § 8 restricts the court’s authority to act to
cases commenced on or after September 1, 2024, as defendants contend, or
whether § 8 marks the date when the court can begin accepting cases, as
plaintiffs contend. For the following reasons, the court concludes that § 8
serves both purposes. Thus, the court lacks authority to hear this 2022 case.
B. Applicable Law
This is a statutory construction issue, which is a legal question. In re
Panchakarla, 602 S.W.3d 536, 540 (Tex. 2020) (orig. proceeding). The
applicable principles are:
When a statute’s language is unambiguous, “we adopt the
interpretation supported by its plain language unless such an
interpretation would lead to absurd results.” “We presume the
Legislature included each word in the statute for a purpose and
that words not included were purposefully omitted.” We
construe statutes and related provisions as a whole, not in
isolation, .. ., and as a general proposition, we are hesitant to

conclude that a trial court’s jurisdiction is curtailed absent
manifestation of legislative intent to that effect, .. ..

Id. (citations omitted).

Opinion and Order, Page 4
On June 9, 2023, Governor Abbott signed H.B. 19. H.B. 19, § 1 states:

SECTION 1. Subtitle A, Title 2, Government Code, is amended
by adding Chapter 25A to read as follows: ....

H.B. 19, § 1. Thereafter, H.B. 19, § 1 adds twenty sections regarding the
business court’s operation, including §§ 25A.004 and 25A.006 concerning
the court’s jurisdiction, removal, and remand rules.

Under § 25A.006(f)(1), a party may file an unagreed removal notice
within thirty days after it discovered, or reasonably should have discovered,
facts establishing the business court’s jurisdiction over the case. GOV’T
CoDE, § 25A.006(f)(1). Based on this section, plaintiffs contend that their
removal is timely because they filed their notice within thirty days after
September 1, 2024, when the court’s jurisdiction became effective.

But H.B. 19 has seven other enabling provisions, including §§ 8 and 9:

SECTION 8. The changes in the law made by this Act Apply to
civil actions commenced on or after September 1, 2024.

SECTION 9. This Act takes effect September 1, 2023.

Because plaintiffs first and third arguments are related, the court

addresses them together.

Opinion and Order, Page 5
C. H.B.19’s plain text is dispositive.

1. The Statute’s Plain Text

Section 25A.006 permits removal of cases to the business court if the
case meets business court jurisdictional requirements. Id. § 25A.006((d)-(h).
But § 25A.006 does not address whether cases, like this one, filed before
September 1, 2024, are removable. Nor does any other part of chapter 25A.
Rather, one must consider H.B. 19 as a whole to resolve that issue. Sections
8 and 9 provide that resolution.

Section 9 establishes that the statute became effective on September 1,
2023. That is, § 9 was the start date for ramping up this brand-new court to
begin hearing cases. Based on § 9 alone, Government Code § 25A.006 would
appear to allow parties to remove pending cases to this court beginning on
September 1, 2023. But removals were not practical then because on that date
this court had no court space, judges, staff, equipment, supplies, systems,
rules, and other things needed to function. So, the legislature provided one-
year for the court to become ready to begin accepting cases. H.B. 19, § 8 is

that authorizing statute.

Opinion and Order, Page 6
Section 8 does more than set the court’s first operational date. If that
were all that § 8 does, it would read, “The court may begin accepting cases
beginning on September 1, 2024.” But that is not what § 8 says.

Rather, § 8 also limits H.B. 19’s changes to the law to cases commenced
on or after September 1, 2024—a full year after the statute’s effective date.
Section 8’s “this Act” in this context means entire H.B. 19, which begins with
“An ACT relating to the creation of a specialty trial court to hear certain cases;
authorizing fees.” See H.B. 19, preface. Section 1 thereafter amends the
Government Code by “adding” chapter 25A and its twenty sections. Id.
Since chapter 25A in its entirety is a change in Texas law, it follows that
§ 25A.006’s removal provisions also change Texas law.

This court presumes the legislature wrote § 8 the way it did for a reason
and cannot ignore its plain language. In re Panchakarla, 602 S.W.3d at 540.
Nor may it judicially amend the statute. Id. Indeed, H.B. 19’s plain “text is
the alpha and omega of the interpretative process.” Id. at 540-41 (quoting
BankDirect Capital Fin., LLC v. Plasma Fab, LLC, 519 8.W.3d 76, 86 (Tex.
2017)).

Accordingly, this court must construe §8 as limiting § 25A.006’s

removal provisions to cases filed on or after September 1, 2024.

Opinion and Order, Page 7
2. Plaintiffs’ Arguments

Nonetheless, plaintiffs’ first argument is that § 8 does not contain the
word “only” and shows no affirmative prohibition to removing pre-September
1, 2024, cases and merely affirms the court’s ability to start accepting cases
on that date. This argument has several deficits.

To begin, that § 8 restricts the court’s entire chapter 25A authority to
act to cases filed on or after September Ist necessarily restricts all chapter 25A
provisions to cases filed on or after that date. So, no specific reference to
removals is necessary to preclude removing cases filed before September 1,
2024.

Next, plaintiffs cite five examples of legislative enactments saying that
the Act applies “only to” cases filed on or after the Act’s effective date and
stating that a case filed before the Act’s effective date is governed by the law
existing before that date. From there, they argue that (i) those words in those
other statutes have meaning and (i1) their absence here means H.B. 19 does
not so restrict its procedural application to post-September 1, 2024, filed
cases. However, on at least one occasion the legislature included specific

language expressly applying a change in law to pending actions:

Opinion and Order, Page 8
SECTION 10. (a) Except as provided in Subsection (b) of this
section, the changes in law made by this Act apply to a pending
suit affecting the parent-child relationship regardless of
whether the suit was filed before, on, or after the effective date
of this Act.

Act of May 22, 2001, 77th Leg., R.S., ch. 1090, § 10, 2001 Tex. Gen. Laws
2395, 2398 (H.B. 2249). Thus, by plaintiffs’ reasoning, language of this sort
would be necessary for chapter 25A to have retroactive application to pre-
September 1, 2024, cases. But no such language exists here either.

Finally, stating that the statute’s changes in the law apply to cases filed
on or after September 1, 2024, implies that the changes in the law—including
the removal provisions—do not apply to cases filed before that date. See City
of Houston v. Williams, 353 S.W.3d 128, 145 (Tex. 2011) (inclusio unius est
exclusio alterius applies absent a valid alternative construction); Justice
Antonin Scalia and James A. Garner, Reading Law 107-11 (2012) (Negative
Implication Canon). Here there is no other valid construction. The legislature
could have written the court “may begin accepting cases on or after September
1, 2024” had that been its intent. But they did not say that, and we cannot
rewrite the statute to expand the scope of cases removable to this court. In re

Panchakarla, 602 S.W.3d at 540.

Opinion and Order, Page 9
3. Remaining Arguments

Plaintiffs next address defendants’ argument that applying chapter 25A
to cases filed before September 1st would be unconstitutional because H.B. 19
is a procedural statute for which retroactive application is not an impediment.
Since the court resolves this case based on statutory text, it does not reach this
argument. Likewise, the court does not address defendants’ remaining
arguments.

III. Conclusion

Accordingly, the court concludes that H.B. 19’s plain text precludes
plaintiffs’ removal and remands this case to the 193rd District Court of Dallas
County, Texas.

It is so Ordered.

Aitdltlectely
BILL WHITEHILL
Judge of the Texas Business Court,

First Division

SIGNED: October 30, 2024

Opinion and Order, Page 10
Automated Certificate of eService

This automated certificate of service was created by the efiling system.
The filer served this document via email generated by the efiling system
on the date and to the persons listed below. The rules governing
certificates of service have not changed. Filers must still provide a
certificate of service that complies with all applicable rules.

Envelope ID: 93731603

Filing Code Description: No Fee Documents
Filing Description: Opinion and Order
Status as of 10/30/2024 11:01 AM CST

Associated Case Party: ENERGY TRANSFER LP (formerly known as ENERGY
TRANSFER OPERATING, L.P.)

Case Contacts

Name

BarNumber

TimestampSubmitted

Status

Automated Certificate of eService

Envelope ID: 93731603
Filing Code Description: No Fee Documents
Filing Description: Opinion and Order
Status as of 10/30/2024 11:01 AM CST

Case Contacts

Name BarNumber | Email TimestampSubmitted | Status
Bradley Gordon brad.gordon@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Joel Reese joel.reese@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Joseph Mastrogiovanni, Jr. jmastro@jmastrogiovanni.com | 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Adam Sanderson Adam.sanderson@rm-firm.com | 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Gary Wallace gwallace@jmastrogiovanni.com | 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Allison Cook allison.cook@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Bella Lee bella.lee@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Brett Rosenthal brett.rosenthal@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Dee Dee Carr deedee.carr@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT
Tyler Bexley tyler.bexley@rm-firm.com 10/30/2024 10:46:41 AM | SENT

Energy Transfer v. Culberson Midstream

Gesamter Gesetzestext

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