Article 7, Section 28 Narrowed: “Internal Improvement” Means Public Infrastructure, and Private Flooding Tort Claims Belong in Circuit Court

I. Introduction

In David Scott Taylor v. Rick Ferguson; Paradise Valley, LLC; Waterview Meadows, LLC; Waterview Estates, LLC; Waterview Estates Phase III, LLC; Aff Holdings, LLC; And Waterview Estates Phase Vi & Vii, LLC, the Supreme Court of Arkansas addressed a recurring jurisdictional question unique to Arkansas’s constitutional structure: when must a plaintiff file first in “county court” under Ark. Const. art. 7, § 28 rather than in circuit court?

The dispute was a neighbor-to-neighbor flooding case. Appellant David Scott Taylor alleged that appellee Rick Ferguson and Ferguson-controlled development entities, while building the Paradise Valley subdivision in unincorporated Pulaski County, altered drainage in ways that increased stormwater runoff and flooded Taylor’s property. Taylor sued in circuit court asserting common-law tort theories (negligence, trespass, private nuisance), seeking damages and injunctive relief (including a larger storm-water detention pond).

The Pulaski County Circuit Court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, accepting Ferguson’s argument that the case fell within the county court’s “exclusive original jurisdiction” over matters relating to county roads and “internal improvement and local concerns.” The Supreme Court reversed, holding this was a private flooding dispute within circuit court jurisdiction.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The court held that Taylor’s amended complaint did not fall within county court exclusive original jurisdiction under Ark. Const. art. 7, § 28. Although the properties were separated by Roland Cutoff Road (a county road) and runoff passed through culverts beneath it, the road and culverts were not the source of the alleged injury. Nor did the private subdivision development constitute “internal improvement,” and the dispute was not “necessary to” county “local concerns.”

The Supreme Court therefore reversed and remanded for proceedings in circuit court, explicitly declining to decide the broader issue whether county courts, as non-judicial entities, can adjudicate common-law claims.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Standard of review for subject-matter jurisdiction

Osage Creek Cultivation, LLC v. Ark. Dep't of Fin. & Admin., 2023 Ark. 47: The court relied on this for the proposition that dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is reviewed de novo. That framing mattered because the appeal turned on constitutional meaning rather than fact-bound discretion.

2. Article 7, section 28 does not sweep in every case “with reference to” roads

Cnty. Bd. of Election Comm'rs v. Waggoner, 190 Ark. 341: The opinion treated Waggoner as a key limiting principle: the mere fact a dispute references roads, taxes, bridges, etc., does not automatically place it in county court. This undercut Ferguson’s attempt to route a private flooding dispute to county court because a county road and culverts sat between the properties.

3. When a county road is central to the injury, county court jurisdiction may apply

Chestnut v. Norwood, 292 Ark. 498: Used as a contrast. There, the plaintiff alleged that a county road’s culverts caused erosion damage—placing the road infrastructure at the center of the tort theory. The Taylor court distinguished it because Taylor alleged the injury was caused by upstream development decisions before the water reached the culverts.
Chamberlain v. Newton Cnty., 266 Ark. 516: Another “road-central” example—allegations that the county built a road across private land without consent. Again, Taylor’s claim was not that the county road itself was a wrongful instrumentality.

4. Meaning of “internal improvement” fixed by original public meaning, not modern intuition

Noel Canning v. N.L.R.B., 705 F.3d 490, aff'd, 573 U.S. 513; District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570; Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 37 U.S. 657; McNabb v. Harrison, 710 S.W.3d 653; Johnson v. Wright, 2022 Ark. 57; Thurston v. League of Women Voters of Ark., 2022 Ark. 32; Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S. 351 (Gorsuch, J., concurring); McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334 (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment) (quoting South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437); New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1; Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706; Wisconsin Just. Initiative, Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Comm'n, 990 N.W.2d 122: The majority invoked these authorities (alongside interpretive scholarship) to justify interpreting Arkansas constitutional language by its historical, publicly understood meaning at adoption. This methodological move was outcome-determinative for “internal improvement.”
In re Internal Improvements, 32 P. 611 and United States v. Cnty. Comm'rs of Dodge Cnty., 110 U.S. 156: These were used to anchor “internal improvement” to public infrastructure “designed and intended for the benefit of the public,” like bridges.
Curry v. Dawson, 238 Ark. 310: Cited to show that Arkansas has historically treated publicly funded projects like a county hospital as “internal improvement and local concern.” That history supported the majority’s conclusion that private subdivision development is not “internal improvement” for article 7, section 28 purposes.
Pierce v. State, 362 Ark. 491: Cited in a footnote about the possible significance of the word “and” in “internal improvement and local concerns,” though the majority declined to revisit existing doctrine because Ferguson lost even under it.
Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 and Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes: Used to reinforce the interpretive point that borrowed legal terms carry their historical “soil” and meaning.

5. “Local concerns” means county affairs within county control, not whatever locals care about

Walker v. Ark. Dep't of Hum. Servs., 291 Ark. 43: The court relied on Walker’s clarification that “local concerns” does not mean “things which the people of a particular community are locally concerned,” but instead tracks county governmental authority.
City of Little Rock v. Town of N. Little Rock, 72 Ark. 195: Used to define “local concerns” as matters specially relating to county affairs (roads, bridges, ferries), excluding subjects outside county control like municipal boundaries and city streets.
Freeman v. Lazarus, 61 Ark. 247 and Willeford v. State, 43 Ark. 62: Examples of matters historically treated as “local concerns” in the county-affairs sense (e.g., county seat issues; licensing).
Reeves v. Been, 217 Ark. 67: Used to illustrate the inverse proposition: if the county lacks authority over a subject (there, education spending), it is not a “local concern” for county court jurisdiction.

6. The concurrences: Amendment 80’s structural implications and limits of county court adjudication

Tripcony v. Ark. Sch. for the Deaf, 2012 Ark. 188: Cited by Justice Womack for the general proposition that subject-matter jurisdiction exists only by constitution, constitutionally authorized statutes, or rules adopted under constitutional authority.
Ark. Dep't of Fin. & Admin. v. 2600 Holdings, LLC, 2022 Ark. 140: Cited regarding harmonizing constitutional provisions where possible.
Little Scholars of Ark. Found. v. Pulaski Cnty., 2024 Ark. 106 and Kimbrough v. Grieve, 2024 Ark. 34: Invoked in Justice Womack’s separation-of-powers critique, emphasizing the mismatch between county judge executive functions and adjudication of private tort rights.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Constitutional architecture: county court as executive, circuit court as judiciary

The majority began by emphasizing what is often obscured by nomenclature: the “county court” under article 7, section 28 is not primarily a judicial tribunal but the county’s executive apparatus “headed by a county judge.” Against that backdrop, article 7, section 28’s “exclusive original jurisdiction” is read as channeling certain disputes about core county executive decisions (taxes, roads, bridges, etc.) to the county judge first, with appeal to circuit court under article 7, section 33 and Ark. Dist. Ct. R. 2.

Conversely, Ark Const. amend. 80, §§ 1, 6 vests judicial power in the judiciary and establishes circuit courts as courts of original jurisdiction for “all justiciable matters not otherwise assigned.” This sets up a strong presumption that private tort disputes begin in circuit court unless clearly carved out by article 7, section 28.

2. “Matters relating to county roads” requires a real nexus—roads must be central

The court adopted a limiting construction: “relating to” requires a “logical or causal connection” such that the county road is central to the controversy, not merely present in the factual background. Distinguishing Chestnut v. Norwood, the court held Taylor did not claim the road or its culverts caused harm; he claimed upstream development and inadequate detention caused harm. That framing allowed the court to treat the road-crossing culverts as incidental rather than jurisdictional.

3. “Internal improvement” is a term of art: public infrastructure, not private subdivision development

The court’s most significant doctrinal move was definitional: it fixed “internal improvement” to its 19th-century public meaning, associated with publicly oriented infrastructure (roads, canals, bridges, public works). The circuit court’s approach—treating any county-approved development as “internal improvement”—was rejected as anachronistic.

On that understanding, Paradise Valley (a private residential development) is not an “internal improvement,” even if it benefits the county or is approved through county subdivision regulation.

4. “Local concerns” is about county affairs within county control; private nuisance disputes are not “necessary to” county governance

The court rejected the idea that a county’s regulatory role in subdivision approval converts ensuing private drainage disputes into “local concerns” requiring county court initiation. It treated county approval as a completed governmental act: once conditions are met and approval granted, a later neighbor tort claim about runoff is not “necessary to” county governance unless the plaintiff actually challenges county action or seeks relief that would require county action.

5. The concurrences sharpen the separation-of-powers and Amendment 80 themes

Justice Womack agreed with the majority but argued the court should have squarely held that county courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate common-law tort claims—particularly after Amendment 80’s reorganization of judicial power into constitutionally qualified courts. Justice Webb likewise emphasized that mere reference to a county road is insufficient and that “internal improvements” and “local concerns” “relate back” to the enumerated county affairs in article 7, section 28.

C. Impact

Jurisdictional clarity for runoff/flooding disputes near county roads: Litigants can expect circuit court jurisdiction for private drainage, nuisance, trespass, and negligence claims even when a county road, culvert, or right-of-way lies between properties—so long as the road is not alleged to be the cause of injury and the relief does not target county road design or maintenance.
Constraining article 7, section 28 by historical meaning: The decision establishes a concrete, historically grounded definition of “internal improvement” that limits county court exclusive original jurisdiction to public infrastructure-type projects, resisting expansion based on modern, colloquial usage.
Reduced ability to jurisdiction-shop into county court: Defendants can no longer rely on incidental county regulatory involvement (e.g., subdivision approval) to force private tort cases into county court by labeling them “local concerns.”
Signals (but does not decide) a broader constitutional confrontation: The majority avoided deciding whether county court can adjudicate common-law claims; Justice Womack squarely argued it cannot. Future cases may press that issue directly, particularly if a plaintiff sues a county or challenges county executive acts while also pleading private tort claims.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

Subject-matter jurisdiction: The power of a tribunal to hear a particular category of case. If absent, the case must be dismissed regardless of the merits.
Exclusive original jurisdiction: A rule that certain disputes must start in a specified tribunal first (here, county court for the limited subjects in article 7, section 28), even if they can later be appealed to circuit court.
County court (Arkansas): Despite the name, the opinion emphasizes it is essentially the county’s executive decision-maker headed by the county judge, not a general-purpose judicial court for private lawsuits.
“Matters relating to county roads”: Not every dispute that happens near a county road. The road must be central to the dispute (e.g., the road/culvert is alleged to cause harm, or the remedy targets the road).
“Internal improvement”: As construed here, a historical term meaning public-oriented infrastructure projects (bridges, canals, public works), not private developments like subdivisions—even if county-approved.
“Local concerns”: Not whatever locals care about; it refers to county governmental affairs within the county’s authority (county business), consistent with the enumerated list in article 7, section 28.

V. Conclusion

2025 Ark. 180 reinforces that Arkansas circuit courts remain the default forum for private tort disputes under Amendment 80, and it confines article 7, section 28’s county-court carveout to its historically understood domain. The court’s central holdings are that (1) incidental proximity to a county road is not enough to trigger county court exclusive original jurisdiction, (2) “internal improvement” means public infrastructure, not private subdivision development, and (3) a private flooding lawsuit is not “necessary to” county “local concerns” merely because the county regulates subdivisions and approved the development. The decision thus curtails jurisdictional diversion of private nuisance/runoff litigation into county court and anchors article 7, section 28 in original public meaning rather than modern administrative convenience.