Last week, the Amarillo Court of Appeals issued its opinion inn City of Lubbock v. Coyote Lake Ranch, LLC, No. 07-14-00006-CV, holding that the accommodation doctrine did not apply to restrict the City’s use of Coyote’s land to develop the City’s groundwater under the land.
In 1953, the City of Lubbock bought the rights to groundwater under the land now owned by Coyote Lake Ranch. In that deed, the City acquired all groundwater rights, and “the full and exclusive rights of ingress and egress in, over and on said lands so that the Grantee of said water rights may at any time and location drill water wells and test wells on said lands for the purpose of investigating, exploring, producing, and getting access to percolating and underground water.” The deed granted the right to lay water lines, build reservoirs, booster stations, houses for employees, and roads, “together with the rights to use all that part of said lands necessary or incidental to the taking of percolating and underground water and the production, treating and transmission of water therefrom and delivery of said water to the water system of the City of Lubbock only.”
In 2012, the City proposed a well field plan for the property and began testing and development under that plan. Coyote sued, asking for a temporary injunction to halt the City’s activity. Coyote claimed that the City failed to accommodate Coyote’s existing uses of the property (the opinion does not say what those uses are), and that the City could use alternatives that would lessen damage to Coyote’s use of the land. The trial court granted the temporary injunction, holding that Coyote was likely to be able to show at trial that the City’s plan could be “accomplished through reasonable alternative means that do not unreasonably interfere with [Coyote’s] current uses.” The City appealed from that order.