Best Buy Stores, Inc., Through Its Assignees Paul Denucci, Rockey Piazza, and Linda Piazza v. Glenn Hegar, in His Capacity as Comptroller of Public Accounts of the State of Texas, and Ken Paxton, in His Capacity as Attorney General of the State of Texas

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN
NO. 03-19-00246-CV
Best Buy Stores, Inc., through its assignees Paul Denucci, Rockey Piazza, and Linda Piazza,
Appellant
v.
Glenn Hegar, in His Capacity as Comptroller of Public Accounts of The State of Texas, and
Ken Paxton, in His Capacity as Attorney General of The State of Texas, Appellees
FROM THE 345TH DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY
NO. D-1-GN-18-002623, THE HONORABLE DUSTIN M. HOWELL, JUDGE PRESIDING
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Best Buy Stores, Inc., through its assignees Paul Denucci, Rockey Piazza, and
Linda Piazza (collectively, the Assignees), appeals from the district court’s order granting the
Comptroller’s plea to the jurisdiction.1 We conclude that Best Buy lacks standing to bring its tax
refund suit—and accordingly that the Assignees lack standing to bring suit in its place—
and affirm.
BACKGROUND
In 2018, the Assignees sued the Comptroller in district court for a tax refund of
$9,130,865.86 plus interest under Chapter 112 of the Texas Tax Code and for “limited
1
For convenience, we use “Comptroller” to refer to both the Comptroller and the
Attorney General when describing procedural actions and filings in court.
declaratory findings.” The Comptroller responded with a plea to the jurisdiction. The following
background recital is taken from the facts alleged in the pleadings, construing the pleadings
liberally in favor of the plaintiffs; the relevant jurisdictional evidence submitted by the parties;
and our previous decisions related to this case to provide context to the dispute. See Texas Dep’t
of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 226–27 (Tex. 2004) (describing scope of
review in appeal from district court’s denial of plea to jurisdiction); see also Assignees of Best
Buy v. Combs, 395 S.W.3d 847, 852–58 (Tex. App.—Austin 2013, pet. denied) (outlining earlier
procedural iteration of this dispute); Levy v. OfficeMax, Inc., 228 S.W.3d 846, 848–49 (Tex.
App.—Austin 2007, no pet.) (same).
Between 1998 and 2007, Best Buy had a rebate program for certain goods Texas
customers purchased from Best Buy. Pursuant to Best Buy’s rebate program, when the
customers submitted rebate forms, Best Buy provided a partial refund of the retail price but did
not refund any of the collected sales tax the customers paid on the full retail price. “[I]n the sales
tax context, tax is collected by a seller adding the sales tax to an initial sales price and then
charging that amount to the buyer as part of the new sales price,” and “a person who collects a
tax holds that money in trust for the State.” Combs v. Health Care Servs. Corp., 401 S.W.3d 623,
632–33 (Tex. 2013). “[W]hen such a tax is charged to a buyer, the buyer’s understanding is that
the portion of the sale attributed to tax will be paid to the government,” and “[t]he buyer also
knows that any profit the seller makes in the transaction is through the sales price alone.” Id. at
633. Best Buy remitted the collected taxes for the full retail price to the State.
The Assignees filed suit individually and as a class action against Best Buy,
seeking a refund directly from Best Buy, but later amended their petition to seek an assignment
from Best Buy of the right to seek a tax refund from the Comptroller. See Levy, 228 S.W.3d at
2
848. Best Buy initially proposed a settlement to refund the sales tax to members of the class if
Best Buy could receive assurances of a credit for the refunds either by agreement with the
Comptroller or by declaratory judgment. Id. The Assignees then amended their petition to add
the Comptroller as a defendant, the Comptroller filed a plea to the jurisdiction, the district court
severed the individual claims and dismissed the class action claim to compel an assignment of
refund rights from Best Buy, and the Assignees appealed the dismissal. Id. at 848–49.
Reversing the district court’s judgment and remanding the case, we held that the district court
had jurisdiction to consider the Assignees’ claims to compel Best Buy to assign its tax refund
rights and to certify a class, but we did not opine on the merits of those claims. Id. at 850–52 &
851 n.2.
The Assignees and Best Buy then settled their case subject to a class fairness
hearing by agreeing that Best Buy would assign to the Assignees and individual class members
its right to bring a tax refund claim. See Assignees of Best Buy, 395 S.W.3d at 853–54. The
district court granted preliminary approval of the settlement, certified the class for settlement
purposes only, appointed class counsel, and granted class counsel the power of attorney to
represent the members in their individual claims against the Comptroller. Id. at 853–55. After
class counsel filed written claims with the Comptroller on behalf of the individual class
members, the Comptroller denied the refund claims, class counsel filed suit in district court, and
the district court granted the Comptroller’s plea to the jurisdiction for failure to exhaust
administrative remedies. Id. at 856–58. On appeal, we affirmed, holding that the district court
lacked jurisdiction to appoint the class counsel to represent the class members in the presentation
of their individual refund claims to the Comptroller, that the portions of the order purporting to
appoint class counsel as counsel for the individuals were void, and that the Assignees did not
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properly exhaust their administrative remedies because class counsel lacked authority to file
individual refund claims on the class members’ behalf. Id. at 868–69.
In 2016, the Assignees then dismissed Best Buy from the suit, “agree[ing],
considering the law of this case, that [the Assignees] have no basis for a claim for damages
against Best Buy.” Best Buy in turn agreed to an injunction compelling it to assign the class its
claims for a tax refund before the Comptroller. The Assignees and Best Buy filed an “Agreed
Final Injunction and Class Certification Order” (Agreed Order) in district court, which the
district court signed in July 2017. The Agreed Order defined the class to include “[a]ll
individuals or entities who redeemed a mail-in, retailer rebate for a taxable purchase made from
Best Buy . . . where the purchase occurred on or after March 1, 1998 and before July 16, 2007”;
appointed class counsel; and ordered Best Buy to execute an assignment to the class of its right
to a tax refund. The Agreed Order also ordered “the Class to accept this assignment in lieu of
any sales tax refund paid directly by Best Buy, recognizing that the Class will attempt to recover
any sales taxes owed to the Class from the Comptroller,” and “the Class Counsel”—“[i]f the
Class succeeds and recovers money”—to “return to this Court with a proposal for distributing
that recovery, inclusive of distribution expenses and a request to recover Class Counsel’s fees
and expenses from the money recovered from the Comptroller.”
In August 2017, Best Buy assigned its right to request a tax refund to the
Assignees “individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated,” and the Assignees
substituted in place of Best Buy as the claimants in the pending administrative hearing for the tax
refund. In April 2018, the Comptroller denied the tax refund claim, concluding that the Texas
Tax Code does not authorize a class to file a tax refund claim or give the Comptroller authority
to grant a class action refund claim. After the Comptroller denied the Assignees’ motion for
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rehearing, the Assignees brought the underlying suit in district court. The Comptroller
responded with a plea to the jurisdiction, raising five grounds: (1) the Assignees’ claim for
declaratory relief seeks an impermissible redundant remedy, (2) the Assignees’ rehearing motion
failed to state any grounds of error that could result in their entitlement to a tax refund, (3) the
Assignees could not receive a refund because Best Buy never refunded the taxes to the customers
as required by Section 111.104(f) of the Texas Tax Code, (4) Best Buy had already assigned its
right to a tax refund prior to bringing the underlying administrative refund claim, and (5) the
Texas Tax Code does not provide for a class action tax refund suit. The district court granted the
plea, and the Assignees appealed from the dismissal.
ANALYSIS
On appeal, the Assignees raise four issues, one of which we consider dispositive:
whether the district court erred in dismissing the Assignees’ claims for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction, a question we review de novo.2 See Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 225–29 (describing
standard). In response to this issue, the Comptroller argues that the district court did not err in
dismissing the plea, reasserting the argument that because Best Buy never refunded the sales tax
to the customers who paid the tax as required by Section 111.104(f), the district court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction over the Assignees’ suit. See Tex. Tax Code § 111.104(f) (“No taxes,
penalties, or interest may be refunded to a person who has collected the taxes from another
2
The other issues, which we do not consider, are: whether the Assignees are entitled to
the tax refund as a matter of law, whether the Comptroller can challenge a claimant’s claim
before the district court on grounds that the Comptroller did not raise during the administrative
hearing, and whether the Comptroller’s attempt to exercise a judicial function violates the Texas
Constitution’s separation of powers. We also do not address the trial court’s dismissal of the
claims for declaratory relief as the Assignees concede on appeal that any declaratory relief
is redundant.
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person unless the person has refunded all the taxes and interest to the person from whom the
taxes were collected.”).
We disagree, however, that Section 111.104(f) imposes a jurisdictional
requirement and provides a proper basis for affirming an order granting a plea to the jurisdiction.
The Legislature has expressly provided that “[s]tatutory prerequisites to a suit, including the
provision of notice, are jurisdictional requirements in all suits against a governmental entity.”
Tex. Gov’t Code § 311.034. But “the term ‘pre’ indicates the requirement must be met before
the lawsuit is filed.” Prairie View A&M Univ. v. Chatha, 381 S.W.3d 500, 512 (Tex. 2012); see
Roccaforte v. Jefferson County, 341 S.W.3d 919, 925 (Tex. 2011) (“Section 311.034 applies to
prerequisites to suit, not notice requirements that can be satisfied only after suit is filed.”). In
contrast, “the question whether a plaintiff has established his right ‘to go forward with [his] suit’
or ‘satisfied the requisites of a particular statute’ pertains ‘in reality to the right of the plaintiff to
relief rather than to the [subject matter] jurisdiction of the court to afford it.’” Pike v. Texas
EMC Mgmt., LLC, 610 S.W.3d 763, 774 (Tex. 2020) (quoting Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12
S.W.3d 71, 76–77 (Tex. 2000)). “We presume ‘that the Legislature did not intend to make the
[provision] jurisdictional[,] a presumption overcome only by clear legislative intent to the
contrary.’” Roccaforte, 341 S.W.3d at 925 (quoting City of DeSoto v. White, 288 S.W.3d 389,
394 (Tex. 2009)). Although other subsections of Section 111.104 show such “clear legislative
intent,” subsection (f) evinces no such intent. Rather, subsection (f) addresses the right to relief
and demonstrates an intent to bar recovery absent the “refund[ing of] all the taxes and interest to
the person from whom the taxes were collected.” Tex. Tax Code § 111.104(f). Accordingly,
lack of compliance with Section 111.104(f) is not a proper ground to affirm the trial court’s order
granting the Comptroller’s plea to the jurisdiction; while the provision may bar recovery on the
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merits, it is not a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit. See Pike, 610 S.W.3d at 774 & n.6 (noting
that “statutory requirements and elements of a claim necessary to prevail on the merits are not
jurisdictional” and that “a plaintiff does not lack standing in its proper, jurisdictional sense
‘simply because he cannot prevail on the merits of his claim; he lacks standing [when] his claim
of injury is too slight for a court to afford redress’” (quoting Meyers v. JDC/Firethorne, Ltd.,
548 S.W.3d 477, 484–85 (Tex. 2018))).
In discussing Section 111.104(f) on appeal, however, the Comptroller also briefly
identified a constitutional standing issue. See Texas Ass’n of Bus. v. Texas Air Control Bd.,
852 S.W.2d 440, 446 (Tex. 1993) (holding that standing requirement cannot be waived and may
be raised for first time on appeal). Pursuant to our authority, see Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(i),
.2(a)(1), .9(b); St. John Missionary Baptist Church v. Flakes, 595 S.W.3d 211, 216 (Tex. 2020)
(per curiam), we requested supplemental briefing addressing whether the Assignees satisfied
constitutional standing requirements. The Comptroller argues that “Best Buy would have
constitutional standing for a refund suit only if it refunded its customers’ tax payments to them,
and to this date it has not done so”; “Best Buy lacks standing because it has not sustained a
concrete injury: it has not expended any of its own funds”; and “[b]ecause Best Buy has never
had constitutional standing to sue the Comptroller, and the [Assignees’] standing is dependent on
Best Buy’s, the [Assignees] lack standing to bring this suit.” For the following reasons,
we agree.
To provide some context, before 2003, the Assignees would have been able to
pursue a tax refund directly, without an assignment from Best Buy, and would have satisfied the
constitutional standing requirement in their individual capacity to bring a tax refund suit. At that
time, Section 111.104(b) provided, “A tax refund claim may be filed with the comptroller by the
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person who paid the tax.” Fleming Foods of Tex., Inc. v. Rylander, 6 S.W.3d 278, 280 (Tex.
1999) (quoting former Tex. Tax Code § 111.104(b)). The Texas Supreme Court construed the
provision as “clearly and unambiguously” providing that customers who paid sales taxes may
“file for refunds of sales taxes even though the tax was collected by a vendor rather than paid
directly to the State” and “without first obtaining an assignment from the vendor who collected
and remitted the tax.” Id. at 279–80. In 2003, however, the Legislature amended Section
111.104(b) to its current form: “A tax refund claim may be filed with the comptroller only by
the person who directly paid the tax to this state or by the person’s attorney, assignee, or other
successor.” Levy, 228 S.W.3d at 850 (quoting Tex. Tax Code § 111.104(b)) (emphasis added).
In Levy, we construed the amended provision to preclude customers “from filing a refund claim
with the Comptroller as persons who did not pay the tax ‘directly’ to the state,” although we
noted that “the statute allows an assignee to file a refund claim with the Comptroller, even if the
assignee did not directly pay the tax to the state.” Id. But we did not consider whether an
assignee could bring a tax refund claim if the assignor did not refund some or “all the taxes and
interest to the person from whom the taxes were collected.” See Tex. Tax Code § 111.104(f).3
3
The Assignees argue that this Court’s statement in Levy v. OfficeMax, Inc. that the
taxpayers “may file a refund claim with the Comptroller once they have procured an assignment
from the Retailers,” 228 S.W.3d 846, 850 (Tex. App.—Austin 2007, no pet.), is “the law of this
case” and “firmly established these plaintiffs have standing.” But regarding constitutional
standing to file a refund claim under the Texas Tax Code as Best Buy’s assignees, this statement
in Levy is dicta, not “the law of this case.” See id. at 851 (noting that “appellants in this case
have not yet filed a refund claim under the tax code”). The statement was made in the context of
construing Section 111.104(b) as “preclud[ing] appellants from filing a refund claim with the
Comptroller as persons who did not pay the tax ‘directly’ to the state” and as “allow[ing] an
assignee to file a refund claim with the Comptroller, even if the assignee did not directly pay the
tax to the state.” Id. We did not address the question of whether the Assignees would have
standing to file a refund claim as Best Buy’s assignees; we were stating only that Section
111.104(b) did not preclude such a claim and that “an assignment of refund rights from the
Retailers” was “a necessary precursor to filing a refund claim with the Comptroller.” Id. at 852.
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Although Section 111.104(f)’s requirement to refund “all the taxes and interest”
to recover on a tax refund claim is not jurisdictional, it nevertheless intimates the jurisdictional
issue of how a vendor would have constitutional standing if it has not refunded to its customers
any of the sales taxes it has remitted to the State. The standing requirement “derives from the
Texas Constitution’s separation of powers among the departments of government, which denies
the judiciary authority to decide issues in the abstract, and from the Open Courts provision,
which provides court access only to a ‘person for an injury done him,’” and a “court has no
jurisdiction over a claim made by a plaintiff without standing to assert it.” DaimlerChrysler
Corp. v. Inman, 252 S.W.3d 299, 304 (Tex. 2008) (citing Tex. Const. art. I, § 13). Standing is a
constitutional prerequisite to suit. Heckman v. Williamson County, 369 S.W.3d 137, 150 (Tex.
2012). “Under Texas law, as under federal law, the standing inquiry begins with the plaintiff’s
alleged injury.” Id. at 155. To satisfy the standing requirement, “[t]he plaintiff must be
personally injured—he must plead facts demonstrating that he, himself (rather than a third party
or the public at large), suffered the injury.” Id.; see DaimlerChrysler, 252 S.W.3d at 304 (“For
standing, a plaintiff must be personally aggrieved[.]”).
The Assignees cannot rely on their own alleged injury to establish a personal
injury when they sued as assignees and not in their respective individual capacities.4 An
assignee stands in the shoes of the assignor; an assignee is not a party to the suit in an individual
capacity and may assert only those rights that the assignor could assert. See Southwestern Bell
Tel. Co. v. Marketing on Hold Inc., 308 S.W.3d 909, 916 (Tex. 2010) (noting that assignee “is
considered under the law to have suffered the same injury as the assignors and have the same
4
And, as we noted in Levy, the Assignees could not have brought a tax refund suit in
their individual capacities. 228 S.W.3d at 848–50.
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ability to pursue the claims”); Gulf Ins. v. Burns Motors, Inc., 22 S.W.3d 417, 420 (Tex. 2000)
(“As assignee, Burns Motors stands in Nash’s shoes and may assert only those rights that Nash
himself could assert.”); John H. Carney & Assocs. v. Texas Prop. & Cas. Ins. Guar. Ass’n,
354 S.W.3d 843, 850 (Tex. App.—Austin 2011, pet. denied) (“An assignee ‘stands in the shoes’
of the assignor but acquires no greater right than the assignor possessed.”).
We cannot conclude that the Assignees have pled facts that would establish
standing based on Best Buy’s being personally aggrieved or that there is any evidence in the
record of a personal injury to Best Buy. As Best Buy merely collected the sales tax from the
customers, “hold[ing] that money in trust for the State,” see Combs, 401 S.W.3d at 632–33, and
then remitted the sales tax to the State, Best Buy has not been personally aggrieved unless it has
refunded at least some of the sales tax to the customers, see Acme Iron & Metal Co. v. Republic
Waste Servs. of Tex., Ltd., No. 03-17-00664-CV, 2018 WL 6519581, at *3 (Tex. App.—Austin
Dec. 12, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op.) (noting that when plaintiffs have “suffered no damages,” they
have “no legally cognizable injury” and therefore “no standing”). And after reviewing the entire
record, the undisputed evidence shows that Best Buy has not been personally aggrieved. See
State v. Holland, 221 S.W.3d 639, 643 (Tex. 2007) (“[I]f the relevant undisputed evidence
negates jurisdiction, then the plea to the jurisdiction must be granted.” (citing Miranda,
133 S.W.3d at 227–28)); Texas Ass’n of Bus., 852 S.W.2d at 446 (“[W]hen a Texas appellate
court reviews the standing of a party sua sponte, it must construe the petition in favor of the
party, and if necessary, review the entire record to determine if any evidence supports
standing.”). The Agreed Order states that the Assignees accepted the assignment of Best Buy’s
right to bring a tax refund suit “in lieu of any sales tax refund paid directly by Best Buy.”
(Emphasis added.)
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The Assignees argue that “[u]nder the statute governing taxes, Best Buy need not
be personally aggrieved to pursue its refund; it need only be a tax permitted seller.” But the
Texas Supreme Court has held that the Legislature cannot set a “lower” standard “than that set
by the general doctrine of standing” because “courts’ constitutional jurisdiction cannot be
enlarged by statute.” Finance Comm’n v. Norwood, 418 S.W.3d 566, 582 n.83 (Tex. 2013); see
In re Allcat Claims Serv., L.P., 356 S.W.3d 455, 462 (Tex. 2011) (orig. proceeding) (“If the grant
of jurisdiction . . . authorized in the statute exceeds the limits of Article V, Section 3(a), then we
simply exercise as much jurisdiction over the case as the Constitution allows[.]”); In re Lazy W
Dist. No. 1, 493 S.W.3d 538, 544 (Tex. 2016) (orig. proceeding) (“For the Legislature to attempt
to authorize a court to act without subject matter jurisdiction would violate the constitutional
separation of powers.”); McAllen Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Cortez, 66 S.W.3d 227, 231 (Tex. 2001)
(“But the interlocutory appeal statute does not supplant the constitutional requirement that the
court of appeals have subject-matter jurisdiction, and both ripeness and standing are necessary
components of that jurisdiction.”); In re LoneStar Logo & Signs, LLC, 552 S.W.3d 342, 350–51
(Tex. App.—Austin 2018, orig. proceeding) (“We are to presume that the Legislature codified its
statutory versions of ‘derivative action[s]’ . . . without intending to stretch statutory standing so
far as to potentially implicate justiciability concerns.”); Texas Quarter Horse Ass’n v. American
Legion Dep’t of Tex., 496 S.W.3d 175, 185 (Tex. App.—Austin 2016, no pet.) (“We must
instead construe ‘party’ in section 2001.901 to extend no farther than what the Texas
Constitution allows—to presume or incorporate the jurisdictional requirement that the ‘party’
possess a justiciable interest and standing to appeal.”). Thus, whether Best Buy has statutory
standing does not resolve the issue of whether it has constitutional standing.5
5
In the context of taxpayer suits for injunctive relief, the Texas Supreme Court has
11
We recognize the implications of our holding: Best Buy has not been personally
injured and therefore does not have constitutional standing until it has refunded at least some of
the taxes to its customers, but the Texas Tax Code permits it as the person who “directly” paid
recognized that the Legislature may “[w]ithin constitutional bounds . . . grant a right to a citizen
or to a taxpayer to bring an action against a public body . . . without proof of particular or
pecuniary damage peculiar to the person bringing the suit.” Scott v. Board of Adjustment,
405 S.W.2d 55, 56 (Tex. 1966) (holding taxpayers had standing to bring injunction proceeding
against city and other entities); see Spence v. Fenchler, 180 S.W. 597, 609 (Tex. 1915)
(concluding plaintiff did not have to show particular interest or damage when statute authorized
“any citizen” to bring action to enjoin operation of bawdyhouse); see also Grossman v. Wolfe,
578 S.W.3d 250, 257 n.4 (Tex. App.—Austin 2019, pet. denied) (relying on Scott and Spence but
questioning their continued status by noting that United States Supreme Court in Lujan has held
that general standing rules apply “regardless of an express statutory-standing provision” and that
Texas Supreme Court “frequently cites to Lujan for standing principles” although “it has done so
in cases that did not involve statutorily created standing” (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,
504 U.S. 555, 571–78 (1992))). The Scott rule is also similar to “a narrow, judicially-created
exception” for taxpayer standing: “a taxpayer has standing to sue to enjoin the illegal
expenditure of public funds, and need not demonstrate a particularized injury.” Andrade
v. Venable, 372 S.W.3d 134, 137 (Tex. 2012) (per curiam). Finally, the Texas Supreme Court
has implied in dicta that the Legislature may bestow standing on an individual without that
individual having satisfied the general requirements for standing. See, e.g., Jefferson County
v. Jefferson Cnty. Constables Ass’n, 546 S.W.3d 661, 666 (Tex. 2018) (“Generally, unless
standing is conferred by statute, a plaintiff must demonstrate that he or she possesses an interest
in a conflict distinct from that of the general public, such that the defendant’s actions have
caused the plaintiff some particular injury.” (quoting Sneed v. Webre, 465 S.W.3d 169, 180 (Tex.
2015))); Hunt v. Bass, 664 S.W.2d 323, 324 (Tex. 1984) (“This general rule of standing is
applied in all cases absent a statutory exception to the contrary.”); see also Grossman,
578 S.W.3d at 256–57 (collecting cases). It is difficult to reconcile these cases with the
established principle that the Legislature cannot set a “lower” standard “than that set by the
general doctrine of standing” because “courts’ constitutional jurisdiction cannot be enlarged by
statute.” Finance Comm’n v. Norwood, 418 S.W.3d 566, 582 n.83 (Tex. 2013). However, Scott
expressly recognized that statutory standing must be “[w]ithin constitutional bounds.”
405 S.W.2d at 56. And the Comptroller argues, “When the Legislature confers citizen standing,
it waives the requirement that an injury be particularized, that is, distinct from the injury to the
general public, but the Legislature does not waive the requirement that the plaintiff suffer any
injury at all.” To the extent the line of cases stemming from Scott and Spence remains binding
law providing an exception from the constitutional standing requirements, the line of cases can
be distinguished as concerning taxpayer and citizen suits for injunctions for which there is a
general injury but perhaps not proof of a particular injury, which is unlike the claim for a tax
refund here where the injury is distinctly personal. We therefore conclude, consistent with
Norwood, that the statutory grant to bring a tax refund suit does not set a “lower” standard “than
that set by the general doctrine of standing.” 418 S.W.3d at 582 n.83.
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the sales taxes to the State to file a tax refund claim (although it cannot recover until it has
refunded all taxes and interests); the Assignees have alleged individual injuries that potentially
could be redressed by a tax refund, but the Texas Tax Code prohibits a tax refund claim in their
individual capacities when they did not “directly” pay the sales tax to the State; and the Texas
Tax Code permits Best Buy to assign its claims to the Assignees, but the Assignees may rely
only on an injury to Best Buy to establish standing. The Legislature chose to amend Section
111.104(b) to permit the filing of a tax refund claim by a person who “directly” paid the tax to
the State but not by a person who paid sales tax to a vendor who remitted the tax to the State. It
is not our province to evaluate the wisdom of the Legislature’s choice in enacting policies; our
duty is to apply the law as written. See Creative Oil & Gas, LLC v. Lona Hills Ranch, LLC,
591 S.W.3d 127, 133 (Tex. 2019) (“It is not the Court’s task to choose between competing
policies addressed by legislative drafting. We apply the mandates in the statute as written.”
(quoting In re Texas Dep’t of Fam. & Protective Servs., 210 S.W.3d 609, 614 (Tex. 2006) (orig.
proceeding))). As the law is currently written and given the constitutional standing requirements
to bring suit, we cannot conclude on this record that the Assignees have constitutional standing
as Best Buy’s assignees to bring Best Buy’s tax refund claim. For these reasons, we overrule the
Assignees’ first issue. Because this issue is dispositive of the appeal, we do not consider the
Assignees’ other issues.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court’s judgment granting the Comptroller’s plea to the
jurisdiction and dismissing the case.
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__________________________________________
Melissa Goodwin, Justice
Before Justices Goodwin, Baker, and Kelly
Affirmed
Filed: April 16, 2021
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