The opinion
Supreme Court of Texas
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No. 24-0828
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Manohar Singh Mann, Narinder Singh Nagra,
and Bhupinder Singh,
Petitioners,
v.
Sikh National Center, Inc.,
Respondent
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On Petition for Review from the
Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas
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JUSTICE YOUNG, concurring in the denial of the petition for review.
The Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act allows a court to award
attorney’s fees to either party or to none—even to a party who does not
prevail on the merits—so long as the fees are “reasonable and necessary”
and “equitable and just.” Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 37.009. What
about when the trial court lacks jurisdiction over the underlying claims?
This Court recently held that fee awards are not available in that
situation under the Texas Citizens Participation Act. See Tex. Right to
Life v. Van Stean, 702 S.W.3d 348, 356–57 (Tex. 2024). The Court has
not, however, decided whether the same is true of UDJA fees. Because I
conclude that this case is not a good vehicle for considering that question,
I agree with the Court’s decision to deny the petition. I write separately
to explain why and to note the need for the lower courts, and eventually
this Court, to address the question in an appropriate case.
I
Petitioners were directors and members of respondent Sikh
National Center, Inc. (SNC), a nonprofit organization that operates a
place of worship. SNC sued petitioners and Wells Fargo, alleging that
petitioners conducted a sham election, illegally asserted rights to and
interfered with SNC’s bank accounts, and opened an unauthorized bank
account. SNC sought declaratory and temporary injunctive relief as well
as attorney’s fees under the UDJA. Petitioners filed a plea to the
jurisdiction arguing that the ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine deprived
the trial court of subject-matter jurisdiction. They also filed a counterclaim
requesting a declaration that their actions were authorized. (This
potential inconsistency—“ecclesiastical abstention bars their claim but
not ours”—turns out to be significant later.)
The trial court signed an order denying SNC’s application for a
temporary injunction, stating that it lacked jurisdiction under the
ecclesiastical-abstention doctrine. The court determined that it could
not decide the dispute by applying only neutral principles of law because
the composition of SNC’s board was based on religious standards. Yet the
court did not dismiss SNC’s lawsuit. In February 2021, after the trial
court denied the temporary injunction, SNC’s board met and officially
rejected petitioners’ actions and determined that they were unauthorized.
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Petitioners also filed a separate lawsuit against SNC seeking access
to certain financial records under Business Organizations Code § 22.351.
The trial court consolidated their suit with SNC’s suit. The parties filed
motions for summary judgment regarding their claims. Petitioners also
filed a partial motion to dismiss, arguing that the trial court had
jurisdiction over only their claims. Both sides sought attorney’s fees. The
court granted SNC’s motion for summary judgment and ordered petitioners
to abide by the February 2021 board vote. The court also ordered SNC to
produce certain documents. After a bench trial on fees, the court signed
a final judgment awarding fees to SNC. Petitioners appealed.
In their appellants’ brief to the court of appeals, petitioners argued
that the trial court erred in awarding fees to SNC because it had previously
determined that it lacked jurisdiction. The brief did not challenge the
trial court’s summary judgment requiring them to abide by the board’s
order, nor did it argue that the trial court also lacked jurisdiction over
petitioners’ claims. The court of appeals held that the trial court could
award attorney’s fees under the UDJA “even if the trial court cannot rule
on the merits for some reason, such as a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction
over the controversy.” No. 14-23-00272-CV, 2024 WL 3616685, at *2 (Tex.
App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Aug. 1, 2024). The court further explained
that it did not need to decide whether the ecclesiastical-abstention
doctrine applied to SNC’s claims because the trial court could have
awarded fees in connection with petitioners’ claims. Id.
Petitioners filed a motion for rehearing in which, apparently for the
first time, they argued that “the trial court had no jurisdiction over any of
the declaratory judgment claims raised in the trial court because they
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were all related to the exact same subject matter.” (Emphasis added.)
They argued that the court of appeals was required to determine whether
the trial court had subject-matter jurisdiction. The court summarily
denied the motion for rehearing.
In this Court, petitioners argue that the trial court awarded fees
pursuant to SNC’s claims, not petitioners’. They also argue that the
court of appeals was required to determine whether the trial court had
jurisdiction over any of the claims.
II
We recently explained that a claim for TCPA fees and sanctions
could breathe life into an otherwise moot appeal if—but only if—the
movant prevailed before the substantive claim became moot. Van Stean,
702 S.W.3d at 356 (discussing State ex rel. Best v. Harper, 562 S.W.3d 1
(Tex. 2018)); see also Tex. Dep’t of Fam. & Protective Servs. v. Grassroots
Leadership, Inc., ___ S.W.3d ___, 2025 WL 1642437, at *14 (Tex. May 30,
2025) (“In other words, the issue that animated a lawsuit may become
moot, but if a statute entitles a litigant to fees based on the merit of the
claim, what seems like a moot case may remain live.”). We then explained
that if the plaintiffs lacked standing, no court would ever have had
jurisdiction to declare the TCPA movant to be a prevailing party. Van
Stean, 702 S.W.3d at 356. In that situation, a court could never properly
award fees under the TCPA. See id.
But while the TCPA is a prevailing-party statute, the UDJA allows
the court to award fees to either party based on equitable principles. See
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 37.009. This Court noted the distinction
between these two types of statutes in Harper. 562 S.W.3d at 7.
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Although we have not directly addressed whether a court may
award attorney’s fees in the absence of jurisdiction over the underlying
claims, we have held that “[t]he plain language of the UDJA authorizes
courts to award equitable and just fees in any proceeding under the Act;
it does not require the trial court to consider or render judgment on the
merits of that claim.” Yowell v. Granite Operating Co., 620 S.W.3d 335,
355 (Tex. 2020). And several courts of appeals have held that jurisdiction
over the underlying UDJA claim is not a prerequisite to awarding fees
under the statute. See, e.g., Devon Energy Prod. Co. v. KCS Res., LLC,
450 S.W.3d 203, 220 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2014, pet. denied);
Feldman v. KPMG LLP, 438 S.W.3d 678, 685–86 (Tex. App.—Houston
[1st Dist.] 2014, no pet.); Castro v. McNabb, 319 S.W.3d 721, 735–36 (Tex.
App.—El Paso 2009, no pet.). At least one court of appeals, however,
has held that because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider the
plaintiff’s “breach of contract and declaratory judgment claims, it also was
without jurisdiction to award [the plaintiff] attorney’s fees based on the
judgment it entered on those claims.” N.E. ISD v. Kelley, 277 S.W.3d 442,
445 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2008, no pet.).
Certainly, a court totally lacking jurisdiction “can make no order
other than . . . dismissing the cause.” Van Stean, 702 S.W.3d at 356
(quoting Diocese of Lubbock v. Guerrero, 624 S.W.3d 563, 564 (Tex. 2021)).
My tentative view—subject to refinement in an appropriate case—is
therefore that a trial court that wholly lacks subject-matter jurisdiction
over a UDJA claim cannot award attorney’s fees based either on the merits
of that claim or on the effort spent advancing or defending against it. But
that does not mean that a court may never award fees based on the
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litigation over the jurisdictional question itself.
Truly frivolous lawsuits can result in sanctions, of course, wholly
independent of a fee-shifting statute. Id. at 357. But there may be even
more in the UDJA context. “[C]ourts always have jurisdiction to
determine their own jurisdiction.” Id. at 355 (quoting Hous. Mun. Emps.
Pension Sys. v. Ferrell, 248 S.W.3d 151, 158 (Tex. 2007)). Courts
necessarily also have jurisdiction to conduct proceedings to make that
determination. And the litigation over that question may be able to
support an equitable award of fees because it is a “proceeding” under the
UDJA. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 37.009. Such an award is not
rendered without subject-matter jurisdiction because there is jurisdiction
to determine jurisdiction, just not to reach the merits.
Depending on the nature of the underlying claims and the
jurisdictional defect ultimately uncovered, that litigation may be quick
and narrowly focused or so broad as to be almost coextensive with the
merits. See, e.g., Tex. S. Univ. v. Young, 682 S.W.3d 886, 887 (Tex. 2023)
(Young, J., concurring in the denial of the petition for review and the
petition for writ of mandamus) (“If the waiver of immunity is tethered to
specific factual prerequisites, the only way to know if immunity has been
waived is to determine if the necessary facts exist. The path to that
destination often passes through jurisdictional discovery.”). A trial court
would need to consider the extent of the jurisdictional litigation when
exercising its discretion to award, or not award, fees. But if the mere
absence of jurisdiction over the underlying claims does not categorically
foreclose the award of any fees, then the entire premise of the petition for
review in this case—that the court of appeals necessarily erred in refusing
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to consider subject-matter jurisdiction over the UDJA claims before
affirming the award of fees—is mistaken.
In any event, this case is not a good vehicle for the Court to resolve
these issues. For one thing, the trial court’s jurisdictional rulings are far
from clear. As mentioned above, the court failed to dismiss the case even
after it concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. But one
reading of those rulings is that the court understood itself to lack
jurisdiction over a particular kind of inquiry but not necessarily or
inexorably over the entire lawsuit. See, e.g., S. Methodist Univ. v. S. Cent.
Jurisdictional Conf. of the United Methodist Church, ___ S.W.3d ___,
2025 WL 1797692, at *21 (Tex. June 27, 2025) (Young, J., concurring)
(observing that in the church-autonomy context, “jurisdictional limitations
are granular; they are not necessarily case-level decisions” and that
“[t]he lack of civil jurisdiction over religious questions, therefore, does
not necessarily entail a lack of jurisdiction over the entire dispute”). The
court eventually ruled in favor of SNC, suggesting that it was satisfied
that no form of the church-autonomy doctrine barred it from proceeding.
Perhaps the church-autonomy doctrine can require a court to proceed, if
doing so is necessary to protect church autonomy, after all. See id. at
*21–22. The courts are not closed to a religious entity that alleges theft
of its property, various other torts, or breach-of-contract claims, so long
as a court is not required to make determinations of religious doctrine
or otherwise intrude into areas reserved only for religious authorities.
It would be a perversion of the church-autonomy doctrine, not a
manifestation of it, to deny religious organizations the protections of the
civil law.
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For another, the court of appeals did not cleanly hold that it could
affirm the fee award in the absence of subject-matter jurisdiction over any
UDJA claim. True, it stated that a trial court can award fees even if its
lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the controversy. 2024 WL 3616685,
at *2. But the court then based its ruling on its view that “[t]he trial court
could have awarded SNC attorney’s fees pursuant to appellants’ UDJA
action, even if the trial court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction over
SNC’s declaratory judgment action.” Id. (emphasis added). That is,
because each party had brought UDJA claims, the trial court’s fee award
could have been tied to petitioners’ claims. And up until the time the
court of appeals issued its decision, petitioners had argued that the trial
court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction over SNC’s claims but did
have jurisdiction over theirs. Petitioners then further complicated the
case by arguing in their motion for rehearing, and later in their petition
for review, that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over all the claims, even
their own. If that were true, it would negate one ground for the court of
appeals’ decision—that the trial court could have awarded the fees based
on petitioners’ claims.
We could not possibly answer the question that matters in this
case—the authority to award fees in the absence of subject-matter
jurisdiction—until we actually confirm that there was a lack of subject-
matter jurisdiction. And both lower courts apparently believed that they
had jurisdiction over at least some of the UDJA claims. The various
complications that I have described show why it would be better to wait
for a case in which collateral issues of these kinds would not threaten to
consume the case. Seeing how the courts of appeals address the issue in
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light of Van Stean would also be useful. I accordingly agree with the
Court’s decision to deny the petition, but I anticipate a future case in
which the Court will thoroughly examine whether a court may award
UDJA fees even if it lacks jurisdiction over all UDJA claims.
Evan A. Young
Justice
OPINION FILED: July 25, 2025
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