Houston landlord sues Texas Supreme Court over pipeline

Property rights are almost sacred in Texas.

More often than not, landowners will win in the Lone Star State’s courts — though the state’s Republican supreme court isn’t above ruling in favor of bigger economic players in land disputes versus smaller landowners.

Just ask Houston landlord Bernard Morello, who is suing the Texas Supreme Court and three of its justices in federal court.

Morello claims Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and Justices Jeff Boyd and Brett Busby violated his due process and property rights under the 5th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution for accepting direct and indirect campaign donations from the parent company of an oil pipeline company, which they then ruled in favor of in a suit involving Morello’s company White Lion Holdings LLC.

The case stems from an earlier petition filed by Seaway Crude Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Enterprise Products Partners, L.P, which sought easements to have its pipeline run through Morello’s property in Fort Bend County near Houston. The state’s highest court granted the easements.

Now, in a suit filed in the U.S. District Southern District of Texas, Morello, who is representing himself, claims the three elected Texas Supreme Court judges should have recused themselves from that case because they took thousands of dollars in direct and indirect campaign contributions from Enterprise Products Partners.

Morello is seeking the nullification of the Texas Supreme Court’s decision because he can’t develop his land as an industrial site now that Seaway can run its pipelines through the property. Morello says the land — which is located in Fort Bend County and is flanked by two railway mainlines — had a rail spur and other improvements that made it uniquely suitable for an industrial site.

In his lawsuit, Morello cited thousands of dollars donated to the judges’ reelection campaigns from lawyers at the firms of Winstead, Norton Fulbright Rose, which represented Enterprise Products and Seaway against Morello, along with donations from Enterprise’s and Winstead’s political action committees.

In November 2018, Morello’s White Lion Holdings previously lost a separate case before the Texas Supreme Court involving this same patch of land related to violations of the state’s water code. The court ruled that White Lion Holdings and Morello were liable for $367,000 in civil penalties for failing to comply with a hazardous waste compliance plan that the company was under.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Texas Supreme Court’s 2018 decision by declining to review Morello’s case.

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