Chapter 21 Repurchase Claims Proceed Against the State: Placement in Texas’s Eminent-Domain Code as a Clear Waiver of Sovereign Immunity

Case: The State of Texas and Kyle Madsen in his Official Capacity as Director of Right of Way v. JRJ Pusok Holdings, LLC
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Date: June 12, 2026
Opinion Discussed: Justice Young, concurring (joining the Court’s opinion in full)

1. Introduction

This case concerns whether sovereign immunity prevents a private party from suing the State to enforce a statutory repurchase right located in Chapter 21 of the Texas Property Code—Texas’s comprehensive eminent-domain framework. The petitioners are the State of Texas and Kyle Madsen in his official capacity as Director of Right of Way; the respondent is JRJ Pusok Holdings, LLC.

The core question addressed by the Court (and endorsed in Justice Young’s concurrence) is a waiver question: did the Legislature, by placing repurchase provisions within Chapter 21, speak with the “clear and unambiguous” intent required to allow suit against the State? The Court held that immunity is no barrier. Justice Young agrees fully, but writes separately to argue that courts should often be able to resolve waiver questions more straightforwardly than some precedent-driven multi-factor approaches might suggest.

2. Summary of the Opinion

Justice Young’s concurrence accepts the Court’s holding that sovereign immunity does not bar repurchase claims brought under Chapter 21. In his view, the Legislature’s decision to locate the repurchase right inside Texas’s eminent-domain scheme is itself a clear and unambiguous waiver because sovereign immunity “does not apply in eminent-domain proceedings” under settled law.

While recognizing that the Court also analyzed various “inquiries” drawn from prior sovereign-immunity cases, Justice Young stresses that such inquiries are unnecessary here and can become affirmatively harmful if they invite courts to weigh policy-like considerations (e.g., whether a statute “makes sense” absent a waiver) rather than anchoring the analysis in text, context, and statutory placement.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

A. The clear-statement rule for waiving sovereign immunity

  • Hillman v. Nueces County, 579 S.W.3d 354 (Tex. 2019): Cited for the governing postulate that the Legislature must use “clear and unambiguous language” to waive immunity and for cataloging factors sometimes used to assess waiver. Justice Young agrees the Court applied Hillman accurately, but suggests the extra “factors” should not drive outcomes when text and context already supply clarity.
  • Tooke v. City of Mexia, 197 S.W.3d 325 (Tex. 2006): Quoted (via Hillman) for the “clear and unambiguous” requirement and referenced for the historical framing of sovereign immunity as an “established principle of jurisprudence.” Justice Young uses Tooke to reinforce why accidental or implied waivers are disfavored—and why a clear-statement rule is justified as a structural safeguard.
  • Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 281 (2012): Quoted for the general interpretive proposition that a statute does not waive immunity unless the waiver is “unequivocally clear.” This supports Justice Young’s emphasis that waiver analysis is fundamentally interpretive and text-centered.
  • Beers v. Arkansas, 61 U.S. 527 (1857) and Hosner v. DeYoung, 1 Tex. 764 (1847): Invoked to show the deep common-law and early-American roots of the immunity principle (and thus the legitimacy of demanding clarity before concluding the sovereign consented to be sued).

B. Structural purposes of sovereign immunity and separation of powers

  • Brown & Gay Eng'g, Inc. v. Olivares, 461 S.W.3d 117 (Tex. 2015): Cited for the idea that immunity protects the public fisc by leaving to the Legislature when tax resources are diverted to litigation.
  • Tex. Nat. Res. Conservation Comm'n v. IT-Davy, 74 S.W.3d 849 (Tex. 2002) (plurality opinion): Quoted within Brown & Gay’s fiscal-protection rationale, reinforcing that waiver choices belong to the Legislature.
  • Nettles v. GTECH Corp., 606 S.W.3d 726 (Tex. 2020) and Hughes v. Tom Green County, 573 S.W.3d 212 (Tex. 2019): Cited to connect sovereign immunity with separation-of-powers values—preventing courts from interfering with other branches’ responsibilities.

C. Clear-statement rules as “clarity taxes” (comparative interpretive context)

  • Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477 (2023) (Barrett, J., concurring): Quoted for the “clarity tax” concept—clear-statement rules force legislative accountability and reduce judicial policymaking under the guise of interpretation.
  • John Manning, Clear Statement Rules and the Constitution, 110 Colum. L. Rev. 339 (2010): Cited (via Biden) for the academic articulation of how clear-statement rules shift institutional responsibility and demand legislative deliberation.
  • S.C. v. M.B., 650 S.W.3d 428 (Tex. 2022): Used as an analogy: just as courts resist labeling statutes “jurisdictional” absent clear intent, courts similarly insist on clarity before finding immunity waived. The citation underscores Justice Young’s theme that clear-statement rules are legitimate when they implement foundational structural principles.

D. Eminent domain, inverse condemnation, and why Chapter 21’s context matters

  • Hidalgo County Water Improvement Dist. No. 3 v. Hidalgo County Irrigation Dist. No. 1, 669 S.W.3d 178 (Tex. 2023): Central to the concurrence’s core move: it states that sovereign immunity does not apply in eminent-domain proceedings and recognizes the availability of inverse condemnation when property is taken without just compensation. Justice Young uses Hidalgo County to argue that Chapter 21’s eminent-domain context supplies the needed “clear and unambiguous” waiver for repurchase suits.
  • City of Baytown v. Schrock, 645 S.W.3d 174 (Tex. 2022): Cited for the constitutional “vehicle” for inverse-condemnation claims (i.e., constitutional protections themselves authorize suits for just compensation). This helps distinguish between (1) constitutionally compelled waivers (inverse condemnation) and (2) legislatively created rights (repurchase), while still supporting the point that Chapter 21 is a domain in which immunity is already understood to be inapplicable.

E. The “purpose absent waiver” line of cases (endorsed as accurate but treated as unnecessary)

  • Harris County Hosp. Dist. v. Tomball Reg'l Hosp., 283 S.W.3d 838 (Tex. 2009): Cited (via Hillman) for the inquiry whether statutory provisions would serve any purpose absent waiver. Justice Young warns that such inquiries can drift from interpretation toward speculation about legislative policy.
  • Oncor Elec. Delivery Co. v. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, 369 S.W.3d 845 (Tex. 2012): Cited for asking whether a statute “makes any sense” if immunity is not waived and for a more flexible formulation that does “not requir[e] perfect clarity” where rights cannot reasonably be read to require a separate waiver. Justice Young views this as a dilution risk: once courts start deciding whether immunity “makes sense,” the clear-statement rule’s disciplining function can erode.

F. Statutory references used to illustrate “clarity” in waiver drafting

  • Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.025(a): Offered as an example of an express waiver (“Sovereign immunity to suit is waived and abolished…”), showing what maximal clarity looks like.
  • Tex. Health & Safety Code § 571.0167(b): Cited (through the dissent’s examples) as a different path to clarity—making the State a necessary party can clearly imply consent to be sued in that proceeding.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. The holding’s interpretive foundation: Chapter 21’s placement and context

Justice Young’s principal interpretive claim is simple: context can supply clarity. The Legislature placed the repurchase right inside Chapter 21, Texas’s eminent-domain code. Under established Texas law, sovereign immunity does not apply in eminent-domain proceedings (as reiterated in Hidalgo County Water Improvement Dist. No. 3). Therefore, making repurchase a Chapter 21 claim communicates—with sufficient clarity—that it is enforceable against the State in court.

B. Clear-statement rules: justified, but not a license for judicial freeform “sense-making”

Justice Young explains why the “clear and unambiguous” requirement is both necessary and structurally grounded: it protects the public fisc, preserves separation of powers, and prevents “accidental” waivers. But he sharply distinguishes requiring clarity from requiring magic words. In his view, the Legislature can clearly waive immunity by:

  • express statutory language (e.g., § 101.025(a));
  • structural choices that necessarily contemplate the State’s presence as a litigant (e.g., making the State a necessary party); and
  • situating a right within a procedural/legal domain where immunity is already inapplicable (here: eminent domain).

C. Critique of multi-factor waiver “inquiries”

Although Justice Young acknowledges that inquiries like “would the statute serve any purpose absent waiver?” (from Hillman/Tomball Reg'l Hosp.) or “does the statute make sense if immunity is not waived?” (from Oncor) have roots in precedent, he argues that they should not be outcome-determinative because they can:

  • invite courts to second-guess legislative policy choices about whether immunity is “helpful” or “necessary,” which is not the judiciary’s role; and
  • risk weakening the very clear-statement discipline that makes waiver determinations predictable and democratically accountable.

On his reading, text, context, and statutory history are the proper tools; policy-like “sense-making” is at best redundant and at worst destabilizing in closer cases.

3.3. Impact

A. Practical effect for Chapter 21 repurchase litigation

The Court’s holding (endorsed by the concurrence) confirms that repurchase claims under Chapter 21 may be brought against the State without being dismissed on sovereign-immunity grounds. This provides predictability for landowners and governmental entities in the acquisition and disposition cycle of condemned property, particularly when statutory repurchase rights are triggered.

B. Doctrinal effect: a context-based path to “clear and unambiguous” waiver

Justice Young’s concurrence signals an important doctrinal emphasis for future cases: clarity can be conveyed by statutory architecture. If the Legislature embeds a cause of action inside a chapter or procedural framework where immunity is already inapplicable, courts may treat that placement as a sufficiently clear waiver—even absent an explicit “immunity is waived” clause.

C. Potential constraint on “purpose absent waiver” reasoning

While not overruling anything, the concurrence encourages the Court to treat the Hillman/Oncor-style “purpose” inquiries as nonessential. If future Courts adopt this approach, waiver analysis may become more:

  • textual and structural (what did the Legislature enact, where did it place it, how does it function within the code?), and
  • less impressionistic (less reliance on whether judges think the statute “makes sense” with immunity intact).

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Sovereign immunity: A doctrine that generally prevents the State (and sometimes its subdivisions) from being sued unless it consents. It protects public funds and separation of powers by reserving waiver decisions to the Legislature.
  • Waiver of sovereign immunity: Legislative permission to sue the government. Texas requires that permission to be “clear and unambiguous.”
  • Clear-statement rule: An interpretive rule requiring especially clear legislative language before courts will conclude that a statute changes a default principle of high importance (here, immunity). Justice Young describes this as a “thumb on the scale” and cautions that such rules must be justified by foundational legal principles.
  • Eminent domain: The government’s power to take private property for public use with payment of just compensation, governed in Texas by Chapter 21.
  • Inverse condemnation: A constitutional claim brought by a property owner alleging the government effectively took property without paying just compensation; immunity does not bar such claims because the constitution itself supplies the cause of action.
  • Repurchase right: A statutory (not constitutional) right allowing a prior owner to buy back property under specified conditions after a taking. Because it is “a product of legislative grace,” the key question is whether the Legislature clearly allowed enforcement suits against the State.
  • Subject-matter jurisdiction: A court’s power to hear a type of case. Immunity doctrines often operate like jurisdictional bars unless waived.

5. Conclusion

Justice Young’s concurrence reinforces and clarifies the case’s central takeaway: sovereign immunity does not bar Chapter 21 repurchase claims because the Legislature located the repurchase right within Texas’s eminent-domain framework, where immunity is already understood to be inapplicable. The concurrence’s broader contribution is methodological: it urges that waiver analysis should often be simpler and more text-and-structure focused, cautioning against multi-factor “purpose” inquiries that can dilute the discipline of the clear-statement rule and invite judicial second-guessing of legislative choices.