# Riemer v. State Supreme Court of Texas, No. 25-0673 **Riemer v. State, No. 25-0673, is before the Supreme Court of Texas. Key issue: Which statute of limitations governs a constitutional takings claim for real property: whether, as the court of appeals held, the ten-year adverse possession period applies to every such claim, or whether the adverse possession statute that fits the taking, here the twenty-five-year statute, governs.** Practice areas: real property, texas constitution, oil, and gas ## Key issues - Which statute of limitations governs a constitutional takings claim for real property: whether, as the court of appeals held, the ten-year adverse possession period applies to every such claim, or whether the adverse possession statute that fits the taking, here the twenty-five-year statute, governs. - Whether the twenty-five-year statute applies to the State's alleged mass taking of royalty interests in more than 1,600 acres along a stretch of the Canadian River, whether the discovery rule or class-action tolling saves the landowners' claims, and whether the court of appeals should have remanded rather than rendering a take-nothing judgment for the State. ## Factual History Petitioners are riparian landowners and royalty and mineral interest holders along a 6.2-mile stretch of the Canadian River in Hutchinson County, called the Disputed Area, which they say covers more than 1,600 acres. The State claims it owned the riverbed from 1927 and leased it to a mineral lessee, J.M. Huber Corporation. Landowners allege that as the river's course changed the State's claim to the riverbed vanished, and that in 1982 the State adopted a privately funded survey by surveyor D.D. Shine (Shine Survey I) that declared the area navigable riverbed owned by the State, leased it, and began an active drilling campaign from which it received royalties until 2022. They say the State committed a mass real-property taking on January 28, 1982 (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF pp. 4-6, 15). The State says petitioners sued for takings of nonpossessory mineral (royalty) interests in land next to the river, that some petitioners settled trespass claims against Huber in 2008, and that others joined the suit years later (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 8). ## Procedural History The State filed this case in 1993; it has been to the Seventh Court of Appeals six times and to this Court once before (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 5). The trial court (84th District Court of Hutchinson County) granted summary judgment declaring the State's survey invalid, declaring the river segment non-navigable, and rejecting the State's limitations defense, which it did for eleven of the nineteen petitioners who moved on the ground a twenty-five-year statute applied. After a three-day bench trial in May 2023, the court rendered judgment in February 2024 for landowners on liability; the parties describe the damages differently, with petitioners saying the court adopted the State's measure of royalties received, $531,231.36, rather than fair market value in 1982, and the State saying the court awarded over $1.2 million collectively (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF pp. 15-16; Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF pp. 8-9). The Seventh Court of Appeals (Doss, J., joined by Quinn, C.J., and Yarbrough, J.) reversed, holding the ten-year limitations period governs every petitioner's real-property takings claim as a matter of law, that the claims were time-barred, and rendered judgment that petitioners take nothing. Riemer v. State, 720 S.W.3d 158 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2025, pet. filed). The court did not decide whether the taking was of real or personal property (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 18). Petitioners filed their petition on September 10, 2025, the State responded January 29, 2026, and the Court requested merits briefing, filed June 26 and August 17, 2026; petitioners' reply is due November 2026. ## Issues Presented Petitioners present: (1) whether the court of appeals erred in holding that the ten-year adverse possession period universally governs all real-property takings claims, when courts apply adverse possession periods on the premise that the State may not take property without compensation more quickly than a private party could adversely possess it, so that the statute that fits the taking governs; (2) whether it erred in alternatively holding that the twenty-five-year statute could not fit, including because that statute governs adverse possession under a recorded but void instrument like the survey the State recorded, the ten-year statute is limited to takings of 160 acres or less while the State claimed ten times that amount, and the State offered no summary-judgment evidence of each landowner's ownership; and (3) alternatively, whether it erred in rendering judgment rather than remanding, when landowners pleaded defenses to limitations, won unchallenged summary and declaratory judgments, and the court did not resolve whether a taking occurred, of what type, or who owns the Disputed Area today (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 19). The State presents three corresponding questions: whether the ten-year statute, applied by analogy for over sixty years, bars each petitioner's real-property takings claim, whether the twenty-five-year statute fits, and whether rendition was correct (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 10). ## Legal Arguments **Petitioners (Jimmy Glen Riemer, et al.):** A taking occurred when the State claimed title to the Disputed Area and put it to public use by leasing it in 1982. Courts nationwide permit a constitutional real-property takings claim to be asserted before title would pass by prescription, the adverse possession statute that fits the taking governs, and nothing supports a per se ten-year period for every real-property taking. They contend the twenty-five-year statute governs the State's mass taking under an instrument they say is void, and that the ten-year statute does not govern as a matter of law. They argue the court of appeals should not have rendered judgment, because the State never cross-moved or offered summary-judgment evidence on their ownership, landowners have defenses to limitations that are ripe once the summary judgment is reversed, and landowners won unchallenged summary and declaratory judgments (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF pp. 5-6, 18). **Respondent (State of Texas):** For over sixty years, beginning with Brazos River Authority v. City of Graham, Texas courts have applied the ten-year adverse possession period by analogy to real-property takings claims, regardless of acreage, or the interest taken. Petitioners' "statute that fits" theory would require case-by-case selection among adverse possession periods of three, five, ten, fifteen or twenty-five years and import their elements into a takings claim, and it cannot be reconciled with the rule that adverse possession statutes do not apply to nonpossessory royalty interests. Even on petitioners' theory, the party able to adversely possess a mineral estate, the operator Huber, held a title instrument, the State lease, which triggers the ten-year statute without an acreage limit, and Shine Survey I is not a deed or instrument purporting to convey the property, so the twenty-five-year statute does not fit. The claims are untimely under the ten-year statute because limitations began when the physical takings occurred, and neither the discovery rule nor class-action tolling revives them. The court of appeals properly rendered judgment because the combined summary-judgment and trial record conclusively establish the limitations bar, petitioners' limitations defenses are legally unavailable, and they abandoned any personal-property theory at trial; if the Court reverses, the State asks for remand on issues the court of appeals did not decide (Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF pp. 2-3, 9-11). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case Petitioners' brief presents the question of the limitations period for constitutional real-property takings claims as unresolved, arguing the court of appeals' rule lacks legal justification and departs from the nationwide standard. The State answers that the ten-year rule is settled and uniform, applied in at least a dozen reported decisions over six decades (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF pp. 5-6; Brief on the Merits (Respondent), PDF p. 11). ## Practice Area Tags real-property, texas-constitution, oil-and-gas ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Seventh Court of Appeals, which reversed a trial court judgment for landowners in an inverse-condemnation (takings) case and rendered a take-nothing judgment on limitations grounds. The Court has requested and received merits briefing; petitioners' reply brief is not yet on file, and the Court has not yet granted the petition. ## Amicus Involvement None --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/25-0673. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.