HOUSTON - Judge Rabeea Collier of the 113th State District Court has denied a request from Attorney General Ken Paxton to stop Harris County from collecting attorney’s fees in a lawsuit against the owners of a mobile home park who failed to provide the residents with clean drinking water or safe sewage disposal.
The County Attorney sued Ted Johnson and Gary Johnson, previous owners of The Heavens Mobile Home Park at 12750 Aldine Westfield Road in north Houston in July 2019.
In order to provide sewer and drinking water services to the residents of the park, the Johnsons operated a public water system and a wastewater treatment plant, which are required to follow state health and water codes. Harris County Pollution Control Services discovered multiple violations of these laws and County Attorney Ryan filed suit to protect the residents and the County, claiming the defendants allowed sewage discharge into a Harris County Flood Control District ditch which eventually reaches the San Jacinto River Basin.
The lawsuit claims the defendants created a hazard for the public at large, and more alarmingly, provided residents water that wasn’t safe to drink and failed to provide water for at least five days.
The County Attorney’s Office filed the suit on behalf of both Harris County and the State of Texas. For decades, both the County and the State collected attorney’s fees in these types of environmental cases with the Attorney General’s agreement. However, the AG filed a motion in this lawsuit seeking to prevent the Harris County Attorney from collecting any fees. It was this motion that Judge Collier denied.
“If the Attorney General had prevailed in his attempt to prevent the County from collecting attorney’s fees, this would have discouraged local governments across the state from investigating polluters, filing cases and putting in the hours and resources necessary to prosecute polluters,” said County Attorney Ryan.
Ryan recently prevailed against the Attorney General in another environmental case when another judge refused to grant the AG’s motion to dismiss the county’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil over a fire at its Baytown plant last summer. The AG had contended that the County Attorney had no authority to sue local companies that violate state pollution laws based on a “blanket” resolution from Commissioners Court, as opposed to a resolution on each individual lawsuit.
The Harris County Attorney’s Office contended that with the many fires and explosions occurring at local plants, it needed to move quickly to file environmental enforcement actions to protect the public and the environment, to preserve evidence and to prevent additional negative impacts to the community.