Briscoe Ranch et al. v. Dimmit County and Tax Assessor

The Briscoe Ranch and others sued to invalidate the tax rate adopted by Dimmit County for 2014-2016, in 2016, due to an alleged mis-calculation of the effective tax rate. The alleged miscalculation surrounded the creation by the County of county energy transportation reinvestment zones, which the Attorney General later ruled were unconstitutional. Dimmit County through its counsel, LSEJ attorney Kirk Swinney, responded, among other more substantive defenses, that the Plaintiffs had waited too late to challenge the imposition of the tax. Although the County’s motion for summary judgment on the issue was argued in the early part of 2018, the Court only recently granted the motion. The ruling saves the County approximately $5 million.