Bexar Appraisal Dist. v. Johnson

Full title: Bexar Appraisal District, Petitioner, v. Yvondia Johnson, Respondent

Court: Supreme Court of Texas

Date published: Jun 7, 2024

691 S.W.3d 844 (Tex. 2024)

Opinion

No. 22-0485

06-07-2024

BEXAR APPRAISAL DISTRICT, Petitioner, v. Yvondia JOHNSON, Respondent

John Brusniak Jr., Tracy M. Turner, Catherine Meili, Evan Paul Singer, Dallas, J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Christopher Arnell, for Respondent. Daniel Richard Smith, James Popp, Mark Stephen Hutcheson, Stephen Grant, for Amicus Curiae Tax Equity Council. Nicholas Goettsche, Matthew Tepper, Round Rock, Wallace B. Jefferson, Austin, Robert B. Dubose, Houston, Stephen Tyler McCarty, Sharon Coffee Baxter, Elizabeth Corny Davidson, for Petitioner. Peter Gardner Smith, Victoria W. Thomas, Dallas, for Amici Curiae Texas Association of Appraisal Districts (TAAD), Dallas Central Appraisal District (DCAD). Mike Thompson Jr., Abilene, John B. Dahill, Dallas, Michael Pichinson, Liberty, for Amicus Curiae Texas Association of Counties. G. Todd Stewart, Houston, Sands L. Stiefer, for Amicus Curiae Harris Central Appraisal District. Michael Sankey, for Amicus Curiae Travis Central Appraisal District.

Justice Huddle delivered the opinion of the Court

On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District of Texas

John Brusniak Jr., Tracy M. Turner, Catherine Meili, Evan Paul Singer, Dallas, J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Christopher Arnell, for Respondent.

Daniel Richard Smith, James Popp, Mark Stephen Hutcheson, Stephen Grant, for Amicus Curiae Tax Equity Council.

Nicholas Goettsche, Matthew Tepper, Round Rock, Wallace B. Jefferson, Austin, Robert B. Dubose, Houston, Stephen Tyler McCarty, Sharon Coffee Baxter, Elizabeth Corny Davidson, for Petitioner.

Peter Gardner Smith, Victoria W. Thomas, Dallas, for Amici Curiae Texas Association of Appraisal Districts (TAAD), Dallas Central Appraisal District (DCAD).

Mike Thompson Jr., Abilene, John B. Dahill, Dallas, Michael Pichinson, Liberty, for Amicus Curiae Texas Association of Counties.

G. Todd Stewart, Houston, Sands L. Stiefer, for Amicus Curiae Harris Central Appraisal District.

Michael Sankey, for Amicus Curiae Travis Central Appraisal District.

Justice Huddle delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Boyd, Justice Devine, Justice Busby, and Justice Bland joined.

In 2009, the Legislature created a residence homestead tax exemption for veterans who are 100% disabled. See Tex Tax Code § 11.131(b). Yvondia Johnson is a 100% disabled U.S. Air Force veteran who claimed the exemption for her principal residence, a home in Converse, Texas. It is undisputed that Bexar Appraisal District, which denied Ms. Johnson’s application for the exemption, would have granted it if she were unmarried. The question we must answer is whether the Tax Code bars Ms. Johnson’s claim to the exemption because her husband, from whom she is separated and who is also a 100% disabled U.S. military veteran, claims the same exemption for his principal residence, a home in San Antonio. The court of appeals refused to engraft a one-per-married-couple limitation onto the statute. It concluded that the Tax Code bestows the exemption on each individual 100% disabled veteran who meets Section 11.131(b)’s express statutory requirements without regard to whether the veteran’s spouse also claims the exemption on a separate residence homestead. We hold that the court of appeals’ application of the statute was correct and thus affirm its judgment.

I. Background

Yvondia and Gregory Johnson are married, and each is a 100% disabled U.S. Air Force veteran. In 2012, when they lived together in their jointly owned San Antonio home, Mr. Johnson applied for a tax exemption under Tax Code Section 11.131(b), which benefits 100% disabled veterans by exempting the complete value of their residence homesteads from ad valorem tax. Years later, the Johnsons jointly bought another home in Converse, Texas. They later separated, with Ms. Johnson living at the Converse home while Mr. Johnson remained at the San Antonio residence. Ms. Johnson, herself a 100% disabled veteran, applied for a Section 11.131(b) exemption for the Converse residence for the year 2020. But Bexar Appraisal District refused the exemption, stating as its rationale "[s]pouse claiming exemptions" at the San Antonio residence. Ms. Johnson protested the appraisal district’s decision to the Bexar Appraisal Review Board under Chapter 41 of the Tax Code. See id. § 41.41(a)(4) (permitting a property owner to protest the denial of an exemption to the appraisal review board). After the review board denied her protest, Ms. Johnson sued. See id. § 42.01(a)(1)(A) (allowing a property owner to appeal the review board’s order in district court).

In the trial court, the appraisal district moved for summary judgment, arguing that Ms. Johnson was ineligible for a Section 11.131(b) exemption because her husband claimed the same exemption on a different home they jointly owned. Ms. Johnson also sought summary judgment, arguing that the evidence conclusively established she met the exemption’s requirements. The trial court granted summary judgment for the appraisal district and denied Ms. Johnson’s motion. Ms. Johnson appealed, and the court of appeals reversed and rendered judgment in her favor. 683 S.W.3d 92, 99 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2022).

II. Applicable Law

A. Statutory interpretation

[1-5] In interpreting a statute, we must "ascertain and give effect to the Legislature’s intent." Odyssey 2020 Acad., Inc. v. Galveston Cent. Appraisal Dist., 624 S.W.3d 535, 540 (Tex. 2021) (quoting Entergy Gulf States, Inc. v. Summers, 282 S.W.3d 433, 437 (Tex. 2009)). "We look for that intent first and foremost in the plain language of the constitutional or statutory provision." Id. "If the statute’s plain language is unambiguous, we interpret its plain meaning, presuming that the Legislature intended for each of the statute’s words to have a purpose and that the Legislature purposefully omitted words it did not include." Silguero v. CSL Plasma, Inc., 579 S.W.3d 53, 59 (Tex. 2019). Statutory terms usually bear their common, ordinary meaning. Id. When a statute defines one of its terms, however, "[w]e do not look to the ordinary, or commonly understood, meaning of the term because the Legislature has supplied its own definition, which we are bound to follow." Entergy, 282 S.W.3d at 437. [6, 7] "Statutory exemptions from taxation are subject to strict construction because they undermine equality and uniformity by placing a greater burden on some taxpaying businesses and individuals rather than placing the burden on all taxpayers equally." Odyssey 2020, 624 S.W.3d at 540 (quoting N. Alamo Water Supply Corp. v. Willacy Cnty. Appraisal Dist., 804 S.W.2d 894, 899 (Tex. 1991)). We have held that "an exemption cannot be raised by implication, but must affirmatively appear." Id. (quoting Bullock v. Nat’l Bancshares Corp., 584 S.W.2d 268, 272 (Tex. 1979)). "The taxpayer has the burden to clearly show that an exemption applies, and all doubts are resolved against the granting of an exemption." Id. at 541 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[8-11] Any doubts, however, must arise "from legal text, not from gut instincts or guesses." Miles v. Tex. Cent. R.R. & Infrastructure, Inc., 647 S.W.3d 613, 633 (Tex. 2022) (Young, J., concurring). Our analysis does not turn on speculation as to whether the Legislature envisioned a particular result but rather depends on what the statute’s text "clearly says." Id. "We must enforce the statute ‘as written’ and ‘refrain from rewriting text that lawmakers chose.’ " Jaster v. Comet II Constr., Inc., 438 S.W.3d 556, 562 (Tex. 2014) (plurality op.) (quoting Entergy, 282 S.W.3d at 443); see also Combs v. Health Care Servs. Corp., 401 S.W.3d 623, 629 (Tex. 2013) ("[W]e read unambiguous statutes as they are written, not as they make the most policy sense."). Consistent with that approach, construing tax "exemptions narrowly does not mean disregarding the words used by the Legislature." Odyssey 2020, 624 S.W.3d at 541.

B. Constitutional and statutory benefits of residence homestead ownership

Since 1866, the Texas Constitution has protected a family’s homestead from forced sale.^{1 1} In considering the nature and scope of this protection in the 1869 Constitution, we noted that the term "homestead" "conveys the idea of a house and place connected therewith" and adopted the dictionary definition as "[t]he place of the house; a mansion-house with the adjoining land." Herman Iken & Co. v. Olenick, 42 Tex. 195, 201 (1874) (citation omitted). And we noted that the 1869 Constitution limited its protection against forced sale to property used for "homestead purposes"; it did not extend, for example, to a property used only for commercial purposes. Id. at 202.

1 See Tex Const art. XVI, § 50 ("The homestead of a family shall be, and is hereby protected from forced sale .") (amended 1973); Tex Const of 1869, art. XII, § 15 ("The homestead of a family .. shall not be subject to forced sale "); Tex Const of 1866, art. VII, § 22 ("The Legislature shall have power to protect by law from forced sale, a certain portion of the property of all heads of families. The homestead of a family .. shall not be subject to forced sale ….").

1 See, e.g., Salomon v. Lesay, 369 S.W.3d 540, 555 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2012, no pet.) ("[A] family is not entitled to two homesteads at the same time." (citing Silvers v Welch, 127 Tex. 58, 91 S.W.2d 686, 687 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1936), and Achilles v Willis, 81 Tex. 169, 16 S.W. 746, 746 (1891))); Ramsey v. Davis, 261 S.W.3d 811, 817 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, pet. denied) ("A party cannot have two homesteads at the same time." (citing Silvers, 91 S.W.2d at 687)); McKee v Wilson, 174 S.W.3d 842, 844 (Tex. App —Waco 2005, no pet.) (citing Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 51, Silvers, 91 S.W.2d at 687, and Achilles, 16 S.W. at 746); Kendall Builders, Inc v. Chesson, 149 S.W.3d 796, 807 (Tex App.—Austin 2004, pet. denied) (citing Tex. Const art XVI, § 51, and Achilles, 16 S.W at 746)

We have also held that the constitutional protection against a homestead’s forced sale does not extend to every individual. Rather, Crowder v. Union National Bank of Houston, 114 Tex. 34, 261 S.W. 375 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1924), noted that "[t]he homestead is by our Constitution given to the family. It is given neither to the husband nor the wife …." Id. at 377. In other words, Crowder held that the constitutional protections against forced sale are not doled out en masse or on a one-per-person basis. Rather, as the text at the time made clear, the constitutional safeguard protected a family unit. See Tex Const art. XVI, § 50 ("The homestead of a family shall be, and is hereby protected from forced sale … ") (emphasis added) (amended 1973). Thus, spouses could not each separately avail themselves of the constitutional protection against forced sale because, while married, they were "constituent members of the same family." Crowder, 261 S.W. at 377. The longstanding historical rule thus had been that constitutional homestead protection against forced sale carries with it a one-per-family limit.

After Crowder, a different type of benefit afforded to homestead owners emerged. Whereas earlier constitutional protection had shielded homestead owners from forced sales, a series of constitutional amendments beginning in 1932 birthed an entirely new kind of benefit: the residence homestead tax exemption.^{2 2} Moved in 1948 to Article VIII, Section 1-b, where it remains today, that provision declared:

2 See Tex H.J. Res. 6, 42d Leg., R.S., 1932 Tex. Gen. Laws 941 (proposing creation of a constitutional amendment to exempt $3,000 of the assessed taxable value of a residence homestead)

2 See, e.g, In re Thaw, 620 F. App’x 304, 309 (5th Cir. 2015) ("A claimant may only have one homestead at any given time, even if the claimant owns multiple residences." (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Achilles, 16 S W. 746)); In re Claflin, 761 F.2d 1088, 1092 (5th Cir. 1985) ("[T]he wife cannot have one homestead and the husband another." (quoting Crowder v Union Natl Bank of Hous, 114 Tex. 34, 261 S.W. 375, 377 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1924))); In re Morgan, 607 B.R. 880, 889 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. 2019) (citing Crowder, 261 S.W. at 377), aff’d, 848 F. App’x 629 (5th Cir. 2021); In re Palmer, 391 B.R. 386, 389 (Bankr. E.D. Tex. 2008) (citing Crowder, 261 S W. 375); In re Dawson, 266 B.R. 355, 358 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2001) (citing Crowder, 261 S.W. 375); In re Nerios, 171 B.R. 224, 226 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 1994) (citing Achilles, 16 S.W. 746).

Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000) of the assessed taxable value of all residence homesteads as now defined by law shall be exempt from all taxation for all State purposes.

Tex. Const, art. VIII, § 1-b (amended 1973). Quite plausibly, Section 1-b’s use of the phrase "as now defined by law" incorporated Crowder’s limitations on the use to which property must be put to qualify as a residence homestead and on who may claim the exemption.

Further constitutional amendments would bring clarity. In 1973, Texans again amended the Constitution, resolving any doubt about who could claim constitutional protection against forced sale. Whereas the 1876 Constitution had afforded it only to the homestead "of a family," the 1973 amendments extended this constitutional protection to also cover a homestead "of a single adult person." Tex. H.J. Res. 7, 63d Leg., R.S., 1973 Tex. Gen. Laws 2478 (current version at Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 50(a)). This reflected the reality that "Texas ha[d] moved beyond the traditional protection of the family and the aged, and ha[d] extended the homestead exemption to single persons who would never have qualified under the old laws." Lynda Beck Fenwick, Note, Effects of Extending the Homestead Exemption to Single Adults, 26 Baylor L. Rev 658, 658 (1974).

A mere five years later, Texans adopted yet another constitutional amendment— this one regarding the residence homestead tax exemption. But rather than amend the scope of "residence homestead" within the Constitution itself as they did with protection against forced sales in 1973, the People of Texas staked out a different path for crafting eligibility requirements for residence homestead tax exemptions: they bestowed the power and duty to define "residence homestead" upon the Legislature. See Tex Const art. VIII, § l-b(c) (empowering "[t]he legislature by general law [to] define residence homestead for purposes of this section").

The Legislature exercised that power shortly thereafter and it took a new approach. It defined a "residence homestead" itself^{3 3} and codified it as Section 11.13(j) of the new Property Tax Code.^{4 4} Importantly, this statutory definition refers to the necessary characteristics of the physical structure and to the purposes for which it is used, but it says nothing about the familial or marital status of its owner or occupier. Largely unchanged since its adoption, it is this statutory definition, not Crowder or other cases construing Article XVI, that defines "residence homestead" for purposes of determining eligibility for a residence homestead tax exemption:

3 See Act of May 28, 1979, 66th Leg., R.S., ch. 302, art. 6, § 1, 1979 Tex. Gen. Laws 680, 689.

3 "The homestead interest is a legal interest created by the constitution that provides prophylactic protection from all but the three types of constitutionally permitted hens against homesteads " Heggen v Pemelton, 836 S.W.2d 145, 148 (Tex. 1992) "The homestead right, when fixed, is an estate in land Cocke v Conquest, 120 Tex. 43, 35 S.W 2d 673, 678 (1931). The "Texas homestead right is not a mere statutory entitlement, but a vested property right." United States v Rodgers, 461 US. 677, 686, 103 S.Ct. 2132, 76 L.Ed.2d 236 (1983).

4 Act of May 26, 1979, 66th Leg, RS., ch 841, § 1, sec. 11.13(j), 1979 Tex. Gen Laws 2217, 2235.

4 We have repeatedly observed § 51’s definitional role. E.g., Whiteman v Burkey, 115 Tex. 400, 282 S.W. 788, 788 (1926) ("Section 51 defines and limits the homestead "), Ford v. Aetna Ins Co., 424 S.W.2d 612, 614 (Tex. Autry v Reasor, 102 Tex. 123, 113 S.W. 748, 748 (1908).

For purposes of this section:

(1) "Residence homestead" means a structure (including a mobile home) or a separately secured and occupied portion of a structure (together with the land, not to exceed 20 acres, and improvements used in the residential occupancy of the structure, if the structure and the land and improvements have identical ownership) that:

(A) is owned by one or more individuals, either directly or through a beneficial interest in a qualifying trust;

(B) is designed or adapted for human residence;

(C) is used as a residence; and

(D) is occupied as the individual’s principal residence by an owner, by an owner’s surviving spouse who has a life estate in the property, or, for property owned through a beneficial interest in a qualifying trust, by a trustor or beneficiary of the trust who qualifies for the exemption.

Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(j).

The work of limiting tax exemptions on a one-per-family or one-per-couple basis is done elsewhere. Some limitations on who may claim a tax exemption reside in the provision that creates the exemption itself. Notably, four residence homestead tax exemptions existed at the time of Section 11.13(j)’s adoption. See id. § 11.13(a) (general residence homestead exemption), (b) (school district residence homestead exemption), (c)-(d) (residence homestead exemptions for individuals who are disabled or at least sixty-five years of age).^{5 5} Each specifies to whom the exemption is granted. Subsection (a), which derives from Article VIII, Section 1-b of the Constitution, expressly states who is entitled to claim a Section 11.13(a) exemption: a "family or single adult." Id. § 11.13(a). The other three Section 11.13 exemptions, by contrast, specify that they benefit and may be claimed by "[a]n adult," "an adult who is disabled or is 65 or older," or "an individual who is disabled or is 65 or older." Id. § 11.18(b)-(d). These distinctions make clear that the Legislature deliberately decided and specified, with precision, who could claim each exemption.

5 See Act of May 26, 1979, 66th Leg., R.S , ch 841, § 1, sec. 11.13, 1979 Tex. Gen. Laws 2217, 2234-35.

5 There is question about whether the proviso applies to urban and rural homesteads, or just urban homesteads. Compare Angus S McSwain, Jr, The Texas Business Homestead in 1990, 42 Baylor L. Rev 657, 659 (1990) ("The business homestead is referred to only in defining the homestead in a ‘city, town, or village.’ "), with Autry, 113 S.W. at 748 ("In defining what shall constitute a homestead, section 51 of article 16 of the Constitution expressly provides that the rural homestead may be one or more parcels, but at the same time provides ‘that the same shall be used for the purposes of a home, or as a place to exercise the calling or business of the head of a family.’ "). In any event, the proviso's key words illuminate the meaning of "homestead."

Little changed since 1980, these same four exemptions remain in Section 11.13 today, where they are subject to several limits to prohibit double-dipping. In particular, Section 11.13(h) forbids use of more than one of these exemptions for a single residence homestead (i.e., stacking). It also disallows use of any one of these exemptions for more than one residence homestead in the same year (i.e., spreading).^{6 6} The four exemptions in Section 11.13 are also subject to a further limitation: anyone seeking to claim them must state that she "does not claim an exemption under [Sec- tion 11.13] on another residence homestead in this state." Id. § 11.43(j)(2).

6 The full text of Section 11.13(h) states:
Joint, community, or successive owners may not each receive the same exemption provided by or pursuant to this section for the same residence homestead in the same year. An eligible disabled person who is 65 or older may not receive both a disabled and an elderly residence homestead exemption from the same taxing unit in the same year but may choose either if a taxing unit has adopted both An eligible disabled person who is 65 or older may receive both a disabled and an elderly residence homestead exemption in the same year if the person receives the exemptions with respect to taxes levied by different taxing units. A person may not receive an exemption under this section for more than one residence homestead in the same year. An heir property owner who qualifies heir property as the owner’s residence homestead under this chapter is considered the sole recipient of any exemption granted to the owner for the residence homestead by or pursuant to this section.
Tex Tax Code §11.13(h).

6 The words "calling or business" were a new feature in the Constitution of 1876. "Early Texas constitutions and statutes, beginning in 1839, made provision for a residence homestead but made no provision for a business homestead." See McSwain, supra note 5, at 657 (emphasis added). The Constitution of 1876 added "two distinctly new features." Inge v. Cain, 65 Tex. 75, 78 (1885) (discussing the Constitutions of 1845, 1866, 1869, and 1876). One was "the protection of the place of business of the head of the family, the unprotected condition of which had then been recently declared in Iken & Co. v. Olenick." Id. at 78-79, (referencing Herman Iken & Co. v. Olenick, 42 Tex. 195 (1874)). The 1876 Constitution’s definition of "homestead" distinctly "embrace[d] the family residence or home as well as a place of business of the head of the family." Rock Island Plow Co. v. Alten, 102 Tex. 366, 116 SW. 1144, 1145 (1909).

The four Section 11.13 exemptions represented the entire catalogue of residence homestead tax exemptions for more than three decades. Then, Texans amended the Constitution again in 2007 to pave the way for a series of new exemptions, including the one at issue here. The 2007 amendment to Article VIII authorized the Legislature to exempt from ad valorem taxation all or part of the market value of a 100% or totally disabled veteran’s residence homestead:

The legislature by general law may exempt from ad valorem taxation all or part of the market value of the residence homestead of a disabled veteran who is certified as having a service-connected disability with a disability rating of 100 percent or totally disabled and may provide additional eligibility requirements for the exemption.

Tex. Const. art. VIII, § 1-b(i).

The Legislature quickly acted, choosing to exempt all—not just part—of the market value of a disabled veteran’s residence homestead from taxation.^{7 7} Importantly, the Legislature made the exemption available to an individual "disabled veteran" who qualifies. It did not limit its availability to "[a] family or single adult" as it did for the general $3,000 residence homestead exemption. See Tex Tax Code § 11.13(a). And, rather than add the new disabled-veteran exemption to Section 11.13, which would have made it subject to the various limitations found in Sections 11.13(h) and 11.43(j)(2), the Legislature placed the disabled-veteran exemption in Section 11.131, outside those limitations’ reach. See id. §§ 11.13(h) (limiting its reach to exemptions in "this section"), 11.43(j) (expressly applying to "an application for a residence homestead exemption … authorized by Section 11.13").

7 The statutory text reads:
A disabled veteran who has been awarded by the [U.S.] Department of Veterans Affairs 100 percent disability compensation due to a service-connected disability and a rating of 100 percent disabled … is entitled to an exemption from taxation of the total appraised value of the veteran’s residence homestead.
Tex Tax Code § 11 131(b).

7 We must understand the Court’s discussion of Herman Iken, an 1874 case, in this context. See ante at 848, 852-53. Herman Iken construed the term "homestead" as limited by our prior Constitution—a limitation that is irrelevant to the one-per-couple limit. While the term "homestead" still "conveys the idea of a house and place connected therewith," id. at 853 (quoting Herman Iken, 42 Tex. at 201), beginning in 1876 that term also conveyed the idea of a homestead being used for business purposes. Herman Iken is not inconsistent with the one-per-couple limit, and in any event, we have discredited that case because it construed the prior version of our charter. See Inge, 65 Tex. at 79 ("The new features in the constitution of 1876 … aptly reverse the holding in Iken & Co. v. Olenick ….").

But that is not to say that Section 11.131(b) operates wholly independent of Section 11.13. On the contrary, Section 11.131 makes clear that "residence homestead," as that term is used in Section 11.131(b), "has the meaning assigned by Section 11.13." Id. § 11.131(a)(2). Section 11.131 thus points to and incorporates the definition of "residence homestead" in Section 11.13(j)(1).

Since the disabled-veteran exemption was adopted, the Legislature has codified other residence homestead exemptions.^{8 8} Like Section 11.131(b), these newer exemptions benefit specific classes of residence homestead owners: partially disabled veterans and surviving spouses of armed services members or first responders killed in the line of duty. See id. §§ 11.132 (exemption for the donated residence of a partially disabled veteran), 11.133 (exemption for the surviving spouse of an armed services member killed in the line of duty), 11.134 (exemption for the surviving spouse of a first responder killed in the line of duty). Like the section codifying the 100%-disabled-veteran exemption at issue here, the Legislature placed these residence homestead exemptions outside Section 11.13, beyond the reach of Section 11.13(h)’s and Section 11.43(j)(2)’s limitations.

8 These exemptions were also preceded by constitutional amendments. See Tex Const art. VIII, § 1-b(l), (m), (o).

8 Lower courts similarly recognized the limit as applicable to "residence homesteads" long before that well-understood term was enshrined in the Constitution. See, e.g, Evans v. Galbraith-Foxworth Lumber Co., 51 S W.2d 831, 833 (Tex. Civ App.—Amarillo 1932, writ dism’d w.o.j.) ("[A] family cannot have more than one residence homestead at one and the same time." (quoting Grimes v. Cline, 300 S.W. 235, 236 (Tex. Civ. App.—Texarkana 1927, writ dism’d))); Grimes, 300 S.W. at 236 ("It is settled law in this state… [t]hat a family cannot have more than one residence homestead at one and the same time."), Allen v. Whitaker, 27 S W. 507, 508 (Tex. Civ. App—Dallas 1894, no writ) ("A party cannot hold two residence homesteads at one and the same time.")

III. Analysis

[12] Where the text of a statute is clear, our only role is to apply the statute as written. Section 11.131(b) of the Tax Code expressly and unambiguously states that a 100% disabled veteran is entitled to a tax exemption for her residence homestead as defined by Section 11.13. Id. § 11.131(b) ("A disabled veteran who has been awarded … 100 percent disability compensation due to a service-connected disability and a rating of 100 percent disabled .. is entitled to an exemption from taxation . .."). The appraisal district agrees that Ms. Johnson is a 100% disabled veteran and concedes that Ms. Johnson’s principal residence, the Converse home, satisfies Section 11.13(j)(1)’s requirements for a "residence homestead." Because the appraisal district does not contend the statute is ambiguous, that should be enough to conclude, based on a plain reading of the statutory text, that Ms. Johnson is entitled to the exemption. Yet the appraisal district urges that the statute’s defined term—"residence homestead"—means something more, or something other, than what the statute says. It argues, first, that this Court’s cases on the constitutional protection against forced sale of a homestead imbue the statutory term "residence homestead" with a meaning other than that found in the statute. Second, the appraisal district argues that statutory limitations that expressly state they apply to Section 11.13 exemptions must also apply to the exemption in Section 11.131(b). Finally, various amici echo the appraisal district’s final reason for asking the Court to depart from the statute’s plain meaning: applying the statutory exemption as written, they contend, will open the floodgates to unmeritorious claims for other residence homestead exemptions. We address each argument in turn.

A. The Legislature bestowed the Section 11.131(b) exemption on individual disabled veterans.

Section 11.131(b) of the Tax Code unambiguously states; "A disabled veteran who has been awarded … 100 percent disability compensation due to a service-connected disability and a rating of 100 percent disabled … is entitled to an exemption from taxation of the total appraised value of the veteran’s residence homestead." Id. § 11.131(b). There is no dispute Ms. Johnson is a 100% disabled veteran with a service-connected disability. Nor is there any dispute that the Converse home and Ms. Johnson’s use of it satisfy Section 11.13(j)(1)’s express requirements. See id. §§ 11.131(a)(2) (assigning "residence homestead" the meaning given in Section 11.13), 11.13(j)(1) (defining "residence homestead" as, among other things, a structure designed for human use, used as a residence, and occupied as an owner’s principal residence).

Nevertheless, the appraisal district advances various reasons that it contends preclude Ms. Johnson from benefitting from the exemption. The appraisal district first argues that Section 11.131(b)’s use of the term "homestead" carries a hidden, atextual limitation: one per family. In support, the appraisal district points us to older cases—Herman Iken and Crowder—which it claims demonstrate that the term "homestead" has always borne a one-per- family limitation. Neither case supports the appraisal district’s "ordinary meaning" argument.

In Herman Iken, we acknowledged that "[t]he leading idea in [a constitutional homestead] exemption, as we have said, is to furnish a home and shelter to the family." 42 Tex. at 199. But that was not because the word "homestead" itself imposed such a limitation. In fact, Herman Iken did not consider whether a husband and wife each could claim constitutional homestead protection if they maintained separate homesteads. Instead, the case arose over a dispute with creditors who sought to seize property owned by the debtor couple on which they maintained a commercial warehouse and did not live. See id. at 196. We said the word homestead "conveys the idea of a house and place connected therewith" and defined homestead as "[t]he place of the house; a mansion-house with the adjoining land." Id. at 201 (citation omitted). Because the tract at issue was used for commercial rather than "homestead purposes," it "was not a part of the homestead." Id. at 202-03. What Herman Iken says about the meaning of the word "homestead," then, is that it necessarily connotes the use of the property as a place where one lives. The Legislature’s definition of "residence homestead" in Tax Code Section 11.13(j)(1) is consistent with that understanding because it requires, among other things, that the residence homestead be "occupied as the individual’s principal residence by an owner." Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(j)(1)(D). All agree that the Converse home is Ms. Johnson’s principal residence.

Crowder, on the other hand, actually addressed whether a husband and wife could establish separate family homesteads. The court answered "no," but not because the definition of the word "homestead" precluded it. Crowder involved a dispute about whether the western 80 acres of a 160-acre homestead tract—conveyed to the wife after the couple separated and planned on divorcing—lost its homestead character upon the execution of the deed. 261 S.W. at 376-77. Despite the partition, the Commission of Appeals concluded there was a fact issue as to whether the tract remained part of the homestead after the couple reconciled. Id. at 377. It reasoned that "[t]he homestead is by our Constitution given to the family. It is given neither to the husband nor the wife …. " Id. As a result, "[a] family can have but one rural homestead." Id. Because the husband and wife were still married, they were "constituent members of the same family." Id. Merely deeding half of the property’s legal title to the wife as her separate property, without more, did not constitute an abandonment of the family’s constitutional homestead protection. Id.

Absent from Crowder is any attempt to give a meaning to the word "homestead." To the extent Crowder restricted the ability of a married couple to establish separate constitutional homesteads, it was not because of a meaning inherent in the word "homestead," which we previously defined in Herman Iken. Instead, Crowder’s analysis turned on who could establish homestead protection. The who—a family—was dictated by the text of the Constitution, which at that time explicitly limited homestead protection to the family. See Tex Const art. XVI, § 50 (protecting "[t]he homestead of a family") (amended 1973); Crowder, 261 S.W. at 377 ("The homestead is by our Constitution given to the family.").

[13] Neither Section 11.131(b) of the Tax Code nor Article VIII, Section 1-b(i) includes such a one-per-family limitation. Section 11.131(b) plainly states the exemption is awarded not to a family, a married couple, or a single adult but, simply, to a "disabled veteran," the individual, without limitation.^{9 9} See Tex. Tax Code § 11.131(b) ("A disabled veteran … is entitled to an exemption …. ").

9 The thrust of the dissent is that the mere use of the word "homestead" necessarily carries with it the one-per-family limit based on how it is used in other constitutional and statutory provisions. See post at 867-68 (Young, J., dissenting) (citing Tex Const art. XVI, §51; Tex Prop Code § 41.002). Yet this ignores crucial constitutional and statutory text that signals when the one-per-family limit does and does not apply. For instance, the limit applies to the forced-sale protection described in Article XVI, Sections 50-52 because the Constitution specifies that protection applies to "[t]he homestead of a family, or of a single adult person." Tex Const art. XVI, § 50. Similarly, the Property Code’s exemption of a home stead from creditors’ claims is limited by the statute’s use of the phrase "homestead of a family or a single, adult person." Tex Prop Code § 41.002(a). There is no similar limiting language in Tax Code Section 11.131(b) or Section 11.13(j)(1). Just as we give meaning to text where it exists, we must too give meaning to its absence.

9 A single homestead was always contemplated, so even if a "business and residence [could] be on separate lots," they were still "taken together and constitute[d] only one, homestead." O’Neil v. Mack Trucks, Inc , 542 S.W.2d 112, 114 (Tex. 1976), mandate recalled and reissued, 551 S.W.2d 32 (Tex. 1977). Historically, a family could also have its "business homestead" on a lot not contiguous to the residence but still have the land constitute the homestead. See Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 51 (as originally adopted in the 1876 Constitution); Aetna Ins. Co., 424 S.W.2d at 616 (analyzing § 51’s reference to "lot, or lots" and holding "that the business homestead exemption may extend to two noncontiguous lots when such lots are used as a place for the operation of the business of the head of a family, and both are essential to and necessary for such business").
This changed in 1999. A constitutional amendment inserted the word "contiguous" into § 51, thus barring a homestead from spanning noncontiguous lots. See Christopher John Kern, Goodbye Texas Urban Business Homestead: An Analysis of the November 1999 Amendment to Article XVI, Section 51 of the Texas Constitution, 52 Baylor L. Rev. 663, 673 (2000) ("As a result of the 1999 amendment, the separate business is no longer considered homestead property,"). Even so, § 51 still uses the words "home" and "calling or business," meaning the distinction between the two types of homestead usage remains. See Joseph W. McKnight, Family Law: Husband and Wife, 59 SMU L. Rev. 1307, 1326 (2006) ("Disputes with respect to a business homestead are very uncommon because the configuration of a business homestead contiguous to a residential homestead is now unusual." (referencing the 1999 amendment)).

The appraisal district urges that the references to "family" and "single adult" found in both Section 11.13(a) of the Tax Code and Article XVI, Section 50 of the Constitution must inform the meaning of the term "homestead" in Section 11.131(b). But this ignores the fact that the Constitution itself gives the Legislature the authority to define the term "residence homestead" for purposes of defining a property’s eligibility for homestead tax exemptions. Tex. Const art. VIII, § 1-b(c) ("The legislature by general law may define residence homestead for purposes of this section."). The Legislature codified that express meaning in Tax Code Section 11.13(j)(1), and that definition nowhere mentions a one-per-family or one-per-couple limitation.^{10 10}

10 Our dissenting colleagues question our straightforward textual approach on the ground that there might be constitutional limitations on the Legislature’s ability to define a term the Constitution expressly gives the Legislature the power to define. See post at 871-73 (Young, J., dissenting). Yet they never explain how the judicial branch would get the power to constrain how the Legislature exercises its express constitutional authority to define a term. In any event, we need not and do not decide whether the Legislature’s definitional authority is unbounded for the simple reason that no party has hinted, let alone asserted, that the Legislature’s definition of "residence homestead" in Tax Code Section 11.13(j)(1) is unconstitutional.

10 The Court observes that the first Article VIII residence-homestead tax exemption was adopted in 1932 in the separate § 1-a. See ante at 848 49. Had the disabled-veteran exemption been placed in § 1-a, my analysis would remain the same.

So even assuming our dissenting colleagues are correct about the ordinary meaning of "homestead," it is the statutory definition of "residence homestead"—not the ordinary meaning of "homestead"— that controls our analysis. See Entergy, 282 S.W.3d at 437 ("We do not look to the ordinary, or commonly understood, mean- ing of the term because the Legislature has supplied its own definition, which we are bound to follow."). Cases construing homestead protection in a different context (i.e., protection from forced sale) do not answer whether Ms. Johnson qualifies for the Section 11.131(b) exemption.

Section 11.131(b) is clear: a disabled veteran is entitled to a tax exemption for his or her residence homestead. Section 11.13(j)(1) is clear, too, and unambiguously sets forth the requirements property must satisfy to qualify as someone’s residence homestead. The statute’s requirements, even strictly construed, are not ambiguous. Ms. Johnson and the Converse home meet the statutory requirements—the appraisal district concedes it.

[14] There is thus no basis to deny Ms. Johnson an exemption, as our dissenting colleagues would, under the guise of strictly construing the disabled-veteran exemption. See post at 873-74 (Young, J., dissenting). Strict construction requires us to "accord the language used by the Legislature a full meaning that will carry out its manifest purpose and intention in enacting the statute but confine the operation of the law to cases which plainly fall within its terms as well as its spirit and purpose." Miles, 647 S.W.3d at 619-20 (cleaned up). But strict construction "does not mean disregarding the words used by the Legislature," Odyssey 2020, 624 S.W.3d at 541, nor does it require us to ignore that the Legislature purposefully omitted others. The words the statute includes and omits, plus context, together demonstrate that the purpose of Section 11.131(b) was to afford residence homestead exemptions to disabled veterans. While doubts are resolved against exemptions, the anti-exemption preference arises only when doubt arises from the statute’s text. Here, there is no such doubt.

B. The other provisions of the Tax Code do not preclude Ms. Johnson from benefitting from Section 11.131(b).

The appraisal district argues that even if what it asserts to be the ordinary meaning of the term "homestead" does not bar Ms. Johnson’s claim to the Section 11.131(b) exemption, other provisions in the Tax Code do. First, it asserts that Section 11.13(a)’s use of "family or single adult" prohibits Ms. Johnson from claiming the Section 11.131(b) exemption. Second, it argues that Section 11.13(h) prohibits her claim to the exemption. Third, it contends that Section 11.43(j)(2) bars Ms. Johnson from claiming the Section 11.131(b) exemption if Mr. Johnson is claiming an exemption for the San Antonio home. These arguments fail because none of these other limitations on the use of exemptions in Section 11.13 applies to the exemption in Section 11.131.

Start with Section 11.13(a). The appraisal district argues that Section 11.13(a)’s providing a $3,0Q0 general residence homestead exemption to "[a] family or single adult" demonstrates the Legislature’s intent that any residence homestead exemption, including that in Section 11.131(b), be limited to a family or single adult. The appraisal district posits that Section 11.13(a)’s use of the word "family" signals that the Legislature intended all residence homestead exemptions to be limited to one per family. We draw a different conclusion from Section 11.13(a): that the Legislature knows how to limit a particular exemption on a one-per-family basis. The fact that it did so in Section 11.13(a) but not Section 11.131(b) means that Section 11.131(b) bears no such limitation. See Ineos USA, LLC v: Elmgren, 505 S.W.3d 555, 564 (Tex. 2016) (noting that when the Legislature uses different language in different parts of a statute, we assume the Legislature meant something different). Certainly, the Legislature knows how to restrict an exemption’s availability to one per family—as it did in Section 11.13(a)—and it made the decision not to in Section 11.131(b).

Similarly, the Legislature knew how to make Section 11.131(b) subject to Section 11.13(h)’s prohibitions on stacking and spreading—yet it did not. The appraisal district is correct that Section 11.13(h) of the Tax Code, for its part, limits availability of many residence homestead exemptions found in the Tax Code. It provides, for example, that "[j]oint, community, or successive owners may not each receive the same exemption . for the same residence homestead in the same year" and "[a] person may not receive an exemption .. for more than one residence homestead in the same year." Id. § 11.13(h). The appraisal district argues this shows the Legislature’s intent to prevent a homeowner from obtaining multiple residence homestead exemptions for one home or exemptions on multiple homes. That is true, but only for exemptions "provided by or pursuant to this section [11.13]" and "under this section [11.13]," respectively. Id. The exemption Ms. Johnson seeks, though, is not in Section 11.13 and therefore not subject to limitations that apply only to Section 11.13. Engrafting Section 11.13(h)’s restrictions onto Section 11.131 would require us to ignore the phrase "in this section." Id. § 11.13(h). We should not. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law The Interpretation of Legal Texts 174 (2012) ("If possible, every word and every provision is to be given effect …. None should be ignored. None should needlessly be given an interpretation that causes it to duplicate another provision or to have no consequence.").^{11 11} Doing so would nullify what we must presume was the Legislature’s conscious choice to locate the disabled-veteran exemption outside Section 11.13 so that it would not be subject to the limitations in Section 11.13(h). See Youngkin v. Hines, 546 S.W.3d 675, 681 (Tex. 2018) (rejecting "attempts to add a requirement to [a] statute that does not exist in its text" because "injecting such a requirement into the [statute] would be disloyal to its enacted text").^{12 12}

11 See also Nat’l Credit Union Admin. v First Nat’1 Bank & Tr. Co., 522 U.S. 479, 501, 118 S.Ct. 927, 140 L.Ed.2d 1 (1998) (admonishing against interpretations that treat statutory terms as mere surplusage).

11 The 1973 amendments manifested in both Article XVI and Article VIII (which, as an aside, confirms my understanding that the homesteads referenced in both articles are the same—why else simultaneously amend Article VIII if the Article XVI homestead limits did not apply to it?). What follows below is the amendatory language to Article VIII, § 1-b (which by then had two tax exemptions):
(a) Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000) of the assessed taxable value of all residence homesteads of married or unmarried adults, male or female, including those living alone, shall be exempt from all taxation for all State purposes.
(b) From and after January 1, 1973, the governing body of any county, city, town, school district, or other political subdivision of the State may exempt by its own action not less than Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000) of the assessed value of residence homesteads of married or unmarried persons sixty-five (65) years of age or older, including those living alone, from all ad valorem taxes thereafter levied by the political subdivision….
Tex. S.J. Res. 13, § 2, 63d Leg., R.S., 1973 Tex. Gen. Laws 2469, 2469 (amending Tex. Const, art. VIII, § 1-b). Striking "as now defined by law" and inserting the underlined language meant that single adults who were not part of a family could—for the first time— claim a homestead interest. See ante at 849.

12 That Section 11.13(h) exists is context demonstrating that the Legislature did not think—or intend—that using the phrase "residence homestead" inherently supplied the limitations found in Section 11 13(h). If it did, parts of Section 11.13(h) would be superfluous.

12 It is unclear whether this meant the legislature could define "residence homestead" only for § 1-b(c)’s purposes or for all of § 1-b, including the eventual disabled-veteran’s exemption in § 1-b(i). Everyone seems to agree it could define the term for all purposes.

Finally, Tax Code Section 11.43(j) poses no bar to Ms. Johnson’s claim to the exemption. Section 11.43(j) requires an applicant seeking an exemption under certain Tax Code sections to "state that the applicant does not claim an exemption under that section on another residence homestead in this state." Tex Tax Code § 11.43(j)(2). Section 11.43(j), however, covers only "a residence homestead exemption prescribed by the comptroller and authorized by Section 11.13." Id. § 11.43(j). As just discussed, Section 11.131(b)’s 100%-disabled-veteran exemption is not authorized by Section 11.13. It resides in a different home, Section 11.131.

"[T]he whole-text canon .. calls on the judicial interpreter to consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and logical relation of its many parts." Scalia & Garner, supra, at 167. Like the disabled-veteran exemption, the Legislature chose to house special residence homestead exemptions for partially disabled veterans, along with exemptions for surviving spouses of armed services members or first responders killed in the line of duty, in their own, independent sections of the Tax Code. Tex Tax Code §§ 11.131—.134. By doing so, the Legislature removed those exemptions from the reach of otherwise generally applicable limitations in Tax Code Section 11.13(h). The Legislature’s choice is a reasonable policy choice. It certainly was one the Legislature had the discretion to make.

C. Today’s decision does not expand the availability of other homestead exemptions.

[15] The appraisal district, along with various other appraisal districts as amici, also conjures a parade of horribles for appraisal districts across the state. But we do not ignore a statute’s text to impose our "own judicial meaning" to reach a certain result, even if amici—or we—think the statute unwise. Silguero, 579 S.W.3d at 59. Instead, we must "refrain from rewriting text that lawmakers chose." Jaster, 438 S.W.3d at 562 (quoting Entergy, 282 S.W.3d at 443). The plain text of Section 11.131 makes clear that Ms. Johnson is eligible for a disabled-veteran residence homestead exemption for her principal residence in Converse, and we cannot avoid that result merely out of concern for its consequences.

In any event, we believe the appraisal districts’ concerns about the proverbial floodgates are unfounded. First and foremost, nothing in the Court’s decision should—or can—be read to expand the availability of constitutional forced-sale protection. As demonstrated above, constitutional forced-sale protection is a distinct concept that remains limited to a "family [or] single adult." Tex Const. art. XVI, § 50(a).

Second, the Legislature’s definition of "residence homestead" restricts qualification to a structure "occupied as the individual’s principal residence by an owner." Tex Tax Code § 11.13(j)(1)(D). A taxpayer seeking an exemption must still establish—as the appraisal district concedes Ms. Johnson has here—that the home for which she seeks the exemption is her "principal residence." Id. It goes without saying that one cannot have more than one principal residence.

Third, but for its limitation to "this section," Section 11.13(h)’s prohibition against homeowners spreading exemptions among multiple residences would have barred Ms. Johnson from obtaining the exemption she seeks in this case. So long as Section 11.13(h) remains in its current form, no recipient of a Section 11.13 exemption may obtain an exemption on more than one home—even a married person living apart from his or her spouse.

Finally, "[t]he Legislature is adept at qualifying its tax exemptions." Tex. Student Hous. Auth. v. Brazos County Appraisal District, 460 S.W.3d 137, 144 (Tex. 2015). If it wishes to preclude Ms. Johnson and similarly situated disabled veterans from receiving residence homestead exemptions, we trust it will amend the statute.

IV. Conclusion

[16] The analysis of whether Ms. Johnson is entitled to the Section 11.131(b) exemption should begin and end with the statute’s plain text. When, as here, the Legislature supplier an express definition for a term the statute employs, the statutory definition displaces the term’s historical or ordinary meaning, and we are bound to give that term the meaning the Legislature ascribed it. Ms. Johnson satisfies the express, unambiguous requirements of Section 11.131(b) and therefore is entitled to the benefit of the tax exemption for 100% disabled veterans. The court of appeals correctly concluded that Ms. Johnson’s summary judgment motion should have been granted. We affirm the court of appeals’ judgment.

Justice Young filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Blacklock joined.

Justice Young, joined by Justice Blacklock, dissenting.

For the first time in Texas history, the Court departs from the deeply embedded legal principle that "[t]here cannot be one homestead for the wife and another for the husband, for the law protects but one to the entire family." Marler v. Handy, 88 Tex. 421, 31 S.W. 636, 639 (1895) (quoting Slavin v. Wheeler, 61 Tex. 654, 659 (1884)). The Court instead concludes that a married couple can have two residence homesteads and claim a tax exemption for both, This historic jurisprudential development faces two substantial obstacles:

• the settled legal meaning of what a homestead is, which without exception has always included a one-per-couple limit, and

• the settled rule that tax exemptions require unmistakably clear statutory authorization, where any doubt leads to rejecting a claimed exemption.

In my view, the Court clears neither hurdle, much less both.

The first should be dispositive. The one-per-couple limit inheres in the very meaning of a "homestead." It is part of what a homestead is. A married couple can no more have a second homestead than an only child can have a younger sister. This couple already has a homestead in San Antonio, so they may not have another one in Converse. Nothing in the constitutional text or the statute we consider today remotely seeks to displace this traditional meaning or is at all inconsistent with it.

So the Court should not even reach the second hurdle—that courts must cast a jaundiced eye on tax-exemption claims. It does, though, and correctly recites that an exemption may be sustained only if the law authorizes it with the utmost clarity and that any doubt about the scope of the text requires rejecting a claimed exemption. See ante at 847-48. The statute does not expressly prohibit a married couple from having two or more residence homesteads—but silence about such an ancient principle cannot clearly overcome that principle. The opposite is true: until the legislature expressly provides for a first-time-ever rule expanding tax exemptions, we must conclude that the legislature has done no such thing.

Today’s result is surely sympathetic. I do not begrudge the Johnsons an extra homestead exemption. I am grateful for their service to our country. But extending tax benefits even to highly favored groups is beyond judicial authority. The Court tries to downplay the effect of its decision, but it is no good to bulldoze objective legal constraints in this case and then not expect courts to do so in future cases. Until the legislature or the People act with clarity to change existing law, I feel bound to apply that law. I would thus reaffirm that a married couple may have only one residence homestead and that any tax exemption must be pellucidly clear. I must respectfully dissent. I

At issue is whether the Johnsons may claim a "residence homestead" tax exemption for one of their homes despite also claiming such an exemption for another. Mrs. Johnson currently lives in Converse while Mr. Johnson, her husband, lives in San Antonio. The Court’s references to "her principal residence, a home in Converse, Texas" and "his principal residence, a home in San Antonio," ante at 846-47 (emphasis added), perhaps make today’s result seem less troubling. But make no mistake, both homes are the couple’s. Both are the Johnsons’ community property. Both exemptions belong to and will benefit the couple.

So no, they cannot claim a residence-homestead tax exemption on two homes because no matter how many homes they own (or that either one of them owns), a married couple can have only one homestead. That understanding is part of the very meaning of a "homestead." This conclusion follows, in greater detail, from these four points, which I will address in turn:

(a) the "one per couple" limit is deeply embedded in the meaning of "homestead," a term of art in Texas jurisprudence;

(b) that limit prominently features in our cases construing Article XVI of our Constitution, which protects homesteads from forced sales, but it applies wherever the term is used-including in Article VIII, which provides for residence-homestead tax exemptions;

(c) nothing about the disabled-veteran homestead exemption departs from or is inconsistent with the settled meaning; and

(d) the Court’s contrary construction should at the least be rejected because of the constitutional-avoidance doctrine.

A

The word "homestead" as used in Texas law has forever imparted the one-per-married-couple limit. See Marler, 31 S.W. at 639. It appears both before our Constitution of 1876’s ratification, see Holliman v. Smith, 39 Tex. 357, 362 (1873) ("There cannot be protected by law two homesteads for the same family, one for the husband and one for the wife. The law protects but one, and that one is the homestead dedicated as such by the head of the family"), and after its ratification, see Slavin, 61 Tex. at 659 ("There cannot be one homestead for the wife and another for the husband, for the law protects but one to the entire family."). This limit is just part of what it means for something to be a homestead.

Given how basic the principle is and how unanimous the understanding of it has been, the only remarkable thing is how many opportunities courts have found to mention it—all through the nineteenth century, the twentieth century, and now well into the twenty-first. Our state courts have repeated it,^1a and so have federal courts applying Texas law.^2a The Court does not identify even one case in which a married couple successfully claimed or benefitted from more than one "homestead" or "residence homestead" for tax-exemption purposes (or any other purpose). It does not identify a single case in which such a result is contemplated as possible. Even Mrs. Johnson’s counsel acknowledged, properly, that this will be the first such case ever.

Nothing in the law has changed to permit the more expansive definition the Court engrafts. The law has grown more generous in various ways, of course. One prominent example, as I describe below, is that since 1973 single adults (that is, unmarried adults who do not head a household) are no longer forbidden from having homesteads. But that generous expansion did not change the status of married adults, who are still part of a family; so even if the family gets a particularly wonderful exemption because of one "individual" family member, or even if more than one exemption might be allowed, a married couple still may have one and only one homestead. This age-old principle—that "[a]t no time has one family been entitled to more than one homestead," Swearingen v. Bassett, 65 Tex. 267, 271 (1886)—remains intact.

The principle is important. It is not only part of what "homestead" means, it reflects what marriage itself means. Treating a married couple as something materially different from merely two cohabiting individuals is core to our law. The Johnsons may choose to live in different houses if they wish, but they are a couple in the eyes of the law, and they may not claim an additional residence-homestead exemption at the Converse home.

B

This core meaning of "homestead" has not changed and applies wherever the term is used. It is true that the attendant one-per-couple limit was repeatedly stated in cases construing the Article XVI homestead provisions. But the constitutional and statutory history reflect that, like the repeated use of any legal term of art, the meaning of "homestead" and its attendant limits apply equally in Article VIII. Cf. Brown v. City of Houston, 660 S.W.3d 749, 755 (Tex. 2023) ("Statutory history concerns how the law changed, which can help clarify what the law means"). To be clear, this case implicates not just statutory history but also constitutional history, because the Texas "homestead" is a constitutionally created legal interest—an estate in land—that vests in a single adult or (rele- vant here) a family. See Tex. Const. art. XVI, §§ 50-52.^3a

The Constitution of 1876 did not authorize "residence homestead" tax exemptions in Article VIII, but the Constitution did contemplate "homestead" protection in Article XVI. Since ratification, Article XVI has protected homesteads from forced sale, see § 50, and prescribed how a husband’s or wife’s homestead interest descends in the event of the other’s death, see § 52. Article XVI, § 51 of our Constitution "defines the homestead." Woods v. Alvarado State Bank, 118 Tex. 586,19 S.W.2d 35, 37 (1929).^4a In 1876, that section contemplated (as it does today) urban and rural homesteads:

The homestead, not in a town or city, shall consist of not more than two hundred acres of land, which may be in one or more parcels, with the improvements thereon; the homestead in a city, town, or village, shall consist of lot, or lots, not to exceed in value five thousand dollars, at the time of their designation as the homestead, without reference to the value of any improvements thereon; provided, that the same shall be used for the purposes of a home, or as a place to exercise the calling or business of the head of a family …

Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 51 (as originally adopted in the 1876 Constitution). The key words § 51 used (and still uses) to define the homestead appear in the proviso: "home," "calling or business," and "family."^5a

The word "home" identified the core and most common purpose of homestead usage. "Before a homestead c[ould] be claimed upon land, it must be used for some one purpose of a home, either by cultivating it, using it directly for the purpose of raising family supplies, or for cutting firewood and such like." Autry v. Reasor, 102 Tex. 123, 113 S.W. 748, 748 (1908). The "word ‘home’ is not necessarily synonymous with ‘homestead,’" see Zorrilla v. Aypco Constr. II, LLC, 469 S.W.3d 143, 160 (Tex. 2015), and the "acquiring of a new home is not always the acquiring of a new homestead," Rancho Oil Co. v. Powell, 142 Tex. 63, 175 S.W.2d 960, 963 (1943).

The words "calling or business" provided another, although less common, home- stead purpose. These words "embrace[d] every legitimate avocation in life by which an honest support for a family may be obtained." See Shryock & Rowland v. Latimer, 57 Tex. 674, 677 (1882).^6a While § 51 contemplated two types of homestead usage, it never recognized "two homesteads, but one homestead, a part of which may be used for the business of the head of the family." Rock Island Plow Co. v. Alte?, 102 Tex. 366,116 S.W. 1144, 1145 (1909) (emphasis added).^7a

In 1876—and until 1973—only a "family" could have a homestead. The Constitution did not define "family" in Article XVI, but as this Court explained almost immediately after ratification, "the framers of that instrument had in view a family composed of husband, wife, and children, for whose protection, in the enjoyment of their homestead, they intended to provide." Howard v. Marshall, 48 Tex. 471, 477 (1878); see also Woods, 19 S.W.2d at 36 (explaining that the "homestead is to be regarded as an estate created not only for the protection of the family as a whole, but for the units of the family"). Our decisions construing the term homestead unsurprisingly discerned a one-per-couple limit. "As long as the relation of husband and wife exists, [one spouse] cannot acquire a homestead different from that of [the other spouse]. They are constituent members of the same family." Crowder v. Union Nat’l Bank of Hous., 114 Tex. 34, 261 S.W. 375, 377 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1924); see also Silvers v. Welch, 127 Tex. 58, 91 S.W.2d 686, 687 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1936) (citing § 51’s definition for the proposition that a "family is not entitled to two homesteads at the same time").

Long before Article VIII provided tax exemptions for "residence homesteads," we recognized this one-per-couple limit as fully applicable to them:

There could not be two places of residence for the family, separate and in no manner used together, and it must be held that the home in fact existing at the time the assignment was made was the only property which the appellees could claim as the residence homestead.

Archibald v. Jacobs, 69 Tex. 248, 6 S.W. 177, 179 (1887) (emphasis added). The "head of a family is not entitled to two residence homesteads" Achilles v. Willis, 81 Tex. 169,16 S.W. 746, 746 (1891) (emphasis added).^8a The phrase "residence homestead" was not a novelty estranged from any other homestead. If anything, it distinguished homesteads being used for "home" purposes rather than "business" ones. "[W]hile the business homestead is ordinarily part of the residence homestead, a business homestead may exist without a residence homestead." Lewis v. Morrison Supply Co., 231 F.2d 632, 634 (5th Cir. 1956) (citing 22 Tex. Jur., Homestead, § 192). However it was used to support a family, there could be but one homestead—urban or rural, residence, business, or residence-plus-business.^9a

The legislature was thus not writing on a blank slate when, in 1948, it proposed and the People adopted the first "residence homestead" tax exemption to be housed in Article VIII, § 1-b—nor was it when (much later, in 2007) the People adopted the amendment authorizing a 100% disabled-veteran exemption.^10a Here is the first one the People approved:

Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000) of the assessed taxable value of all residence homesteads as now defined by law shall be exempt from all taxation for all State purposes.

Tex. Const, art. VIII, § 1-b (as originally adopted in 1948) (emphasis added). The phrase "as now defined by law" expressly referenced and imported existing Article XVI jurisprudence regarding the contours of the "homestead" into Article VIII’s "residence homestead" tax exemption. The one-per-couple limit is part of what was imported—it would have occurred to no one that using the same term of art and expressly borrowing existing legal meaning would have meant anything less.

The Court acknowledges this as "[q]uite plausibl[e]." See ante at 849. It is, in fact, conclusive. Absent some contrary indication—something that makes it impossible to maintain the one-per-couple limit—every residence-homestead tax exemption the legislature proposed for Article VIII (and any other use of "homestead") would import Article XVI’s one-per-couple limit. When the legislature "borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word." United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762, 774, 143 S.Ct. 1932, 216 L.Ed.2d 692 (2023) (quoting Monssette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952)). "We presume the Legislature enacted the statute ‘with complete knowledge of the existing law and with reference to it.’ " In re Bridgestone Ams. Tire Operations, LLC, 459 S.W.3d 565, 572 (Tex. 2015) (quoting Acker v. Tex. Water Comm’n, 790 S.W.2d 299, 301 (Tex. 1990)); see also, e.g., McBride v. Clayton, 140 Tex. 71, 166 S.W.2d 125, 128 (Tex. [Comm’n Op.] 1942) (stating that statutes should "be construed in connection and in harmony with the existing law, and as a part of a general and uniform system of jurisprudence, and their meaning and effect is to be determined in connection" with, among other things, "the constitution" and "the decisions of the courts" (quotation omitted)).

Put differently, when a legal term like homestead is "obviously transplanted from another legal source," here, Article XVI, "it brings the old soil with it." See Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947). Among the soil, or cluster of ideas, associated with the constitutional term "homestead" from before 1876, past 1948’s adoption of the first tax-exemption amendment and subsequent statutes, and through the enactment of the current disabled-veteran amendment and statute in 2007, was this: a husband cannot have a homestead separate from his wife, and vice versa.

If the legislature and the People wished to depart from the rule authorizing only one homestead per couple, they very easily could have avoided the term "homestead" in creating Article VIII tax exemptions. They could have, for example, called these exemptions "residence" tax exemptions, "residence home" tax exemptions, "principal residence" tax exemptions, or given it any myriad of names. Or the legislature and the People could have kept the "homestead" term but affirmatively and expressly eliminated its one-per-couple limit from our homestead jurisprudence (or from part of it).

Such options are not implausible—the People have expressly abandoned a settled meaning in this context. But it was not the one-per-couple limit. Instead, it had to do with the idea of a homestead for an individual. As this Court said in 1878, the "leading idea in the Constitution, in reference to the homestead exemption, was doubtless to secure to such persons as constitute a family, in contradistinction to single persons, a home, and to foster and upbuild the family interests, upon which, mainly, society depends." Whitehead v. Nickelson, 48 Tex. 517, 522 (1878) (emphasis added). That principle was also core to the meaning of a homestead until 1973, when "the Legislature proposed, and the voters adopted, amendments to the Texas Constitution which allowed either a family or ‘a single adult person’ to have a homestead." See Angus S. McSwain, Jr., The Texas Business Homestead in 1990, 42 Baylor L. Rev. 657, 658–59 (1990) (emphasis added); see also Laster v. First Huntsville Props. Co., 826 S.W.2d 125, 136 (Tex. 1991) (Gammage, J., dissenting) ("Since the voters adopted the constitutional amendment November 6, 1973, single adults, including divorced persons, have had constitutional homestead rights.").^11a

This amendment clearly changed a settled meaning—the proper way to do so if the People want that result. But the only meaning that the People changed was to expand homestead access to single adults. Married adults like Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Johnson are not single adults. Nothing in the amendment changed that truism. Nor did anything suggest that Texans could have more than one homestead or residence homestead, whether as a married couple or as a single adult. As accurately put by a contemporaneous analysis, which the Court also cites, "Texas cases have made it clear that there may be only one homestead per family, and the new exemption does not change this limitation." Lynda Beck Fenwick, Note, Effects of Extending the Homestead Exemption to Single Adults, 26 Baylor L. Rev. 658, 665–67 (1974) (emphasis added). Quite so. Without exception, Texas courts and federal courts applying Texas law have continued to invoke the one-per-couple understanding long after 1973. See supra notes 1–2.

The one-per-couple limit presumptively endures across Article XVI and Article VIII until the People change it. It is part of the homestead’s legal meaning as a Texas term of art.

C

As such, the one-per-couple limit continues to "operate as [a] background assumption[] baked into the law" of the term homestead. See Am. Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Arce, 672 S.W.3d 347, 366 (Tex. 2023) (Young, J., concurring). Operating in the assumption’s foreground for this case is the 2007 Article VIII, § 1-b amendment authorizing exemptions for disabled veterans:

(i) The legislature by general law may exempt from ad valorem taxation all or part of the market value of the residence homestead of a disabled veteran who is certified as having a service-connected disability with a disability rating of 100 percent or totally disabled and may provide additional eligibility requirements for the exemption….

Tex. Const, art. VIII, § 1-b(i) (as originally adopted in 2007) (emphasis added). Two years later, the legislature enacted this exemption using substantially similar language:

(a) In this section:

….

(2) "Residence homestead" has the meaning assigned by Section 11.13.

…

(b) A disabled veteran who has been awarded by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or its successor 100 percent disability compensation due to a service-connected disability and a rating of 100 percent disabled or of individual unemployability is entitled to an exemption from taxation of the total appraised value of the veteran’s residence homestead.

Tex. Tax Code § 11.131(a)(2), (b) (emphasis added).

Nothing in the above constitutional or statutory text affirmatively eliminates from the term "residence homestead" the principle that a couple may have only one homestead (the background assumption). Construing the term homestead in accordance with its historical legal meaning should lead the Court to conclude that the Johnsons cannot have two.

Yet the Court believes the provisions quoted above, sub silentio, entitle Mrs. Johnson (and Mr. Johnson) to two residence homesteads. The Court thinks Mrs. Johnson is entitled to a residence-homestead tax exemption for the Converse home, where she lives, and one for the San Antonio home, where her husband lives. (Again, Mrs. Johnson necessarily benefits from both exemptions because she and Mr. Johnson are màrried and the homes are their community property.) According to the Court, "[n]either section 11.131(b) of the Tax Code nor Article VIII, Section 1-b(i) includes such a one-per-family limitation" because the statute (and the amendment) "plainly states the exemption is awarded not to a family, a married couple, or a single adult but, simply, to a ‘disabled veteran,’ the individual, without limitation." Ante at 854.

But there is no need for an additional expressed "limitation" because the one-per-couple limit already inheres in the word "homestead." Disabled veterans are individuals—it is hardly surprising that an exemption for disabled veterans would be phrased as going to, well, disabled veterans. Tethering a disabled-veteran exemption to someone being a disabled veteran hardly means that the traditional one-per-couple limit has disappeared. In addition to being individuals, veterans also are either married or single. A 100% disabled veteran who is married brings the generous exemption with him or her to his or her family.

This unusual case involves both spouses being 100% disabled veterans. Either one could obtain the exemption for the homestead; the fact that both could qualify does not change that they are married. Likewise, any married couple consists of two individual human beings, either of whom could obtain a homestead exemption if single. But as a married couple, they may have only one residence homestead. Not one single word in the constitutional or statutory provisions at issue requires dispensing with these settled principles.

Unable to find any express departure from the one-per-couple limit in the operative constitutional and statutory provisions, the Court turns to two subsections within § 11.13, a different provision of the Tax Code: the residence homestead definition in § 11.13(j) and language codified in § 11.13(h). Neither provides the clear departure the Court needs to rule in Mrs. Johnson’s favor.

1

The Court’s primary argument is that a statutory definition of "residence homestead" eliminated the one-per-couple limit. See ante at 849–50. Here is how the Court proceeds. It identifies a separate constitutional amendment that, in 1978, conceived of a third residence-homestead tax exemption, and in doing so, provided that the "legislature by general law may define residence homestead for purposes of this section." See Tex. H.J.R. Res. 1, § 3, 65th Leg., 2d C.S., 1978 Tex. Gen. Laws 54, 55–56 (amending Tex. Const, art. VIII, § 1-b by adding § 1-b(e)).^12a The legislature then codified the following definition:

For purposes of this section:

(1) "Residence homestead" means a structure (including a mobile home) or a separately secured and occupied portion of a structure (together with the land, not to exceed 20 acres, and improvements used in the residential occupancy of the structure, if the structure and the land and improvements have identical ownership) that:

(A) is owned by one or more individuals, either directly or through a beneficial interest in a qualifying trust;

(B) is designed or adapted for human residence;

(C) is used as a residence; and

(D) is occupied as the individual’s principal residence by an owner,

Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(j).

Observing that § 11.131(a)(2) incorporates the meaning of "residence homestead" from § 11.13, the Court emphasizes that "it is this statutory definition, not Crowder or other cases construing Article XVI, that defines ‘residence homestead’ for purposes of determining eligibility for a residence homestead tax exemption." Ante at 850. And because the "definition nowhere mentions a one-per-family or one-per-couple limitation," there is no problem if Mrs. Johnson claims the Converse home as her residence homestead. Id. at 854.

But wait: neither the constitutional definition of the broader term "homestead," Tex. Const, art XVI, § 51, nor the statutory definition of that term, see Tex. Prop. Code § 41.002, mentions a "one-per-couple limit," either. Yet it is undisputed that "homestead" imports the limit in those contexts. So how, then, do we avoid this consequence for the narrower term "residence homestead," given the same supposedly significant omission? The Court has no plausible answer for this.

The Court correctly observes that we are "bound to follow" statutory definitions. See ante at 847–48, 854–55. Of course—but to follow it, we must know what it means. "[W]hen seeking to understand statutory definitions, ‘the word being defined is the most significant element of the definition’s context.’" In re Ford Motor Co., 442 S.W.3d 265, 271 (Tex. 2014) (quoting Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 232 (2012)). "Statutory definitions must be interpreted in light of the ordinary meaning of the word being defined," and as a corollary, "[c]ourts should not consider the meaning of the term to be defined in total isolation from its common usage." Id.; see also Miles v. Tex. Cent. R.R. & Infrastructure, Inc., 647 S.W.3d 613, 643 (Tex. 2022) (Huddle, J., dissenting). "We presume that a definition of a common word accords with and does not conflict with the ordinary meaning unless the language clearly indicates otherwise." Creative Oil & Gas, LLC v. Lona Hills Ranch, LLC, 591 S.W.3d 127, 135 (Tex. 2019) (quoting Ford Motor Co., 442 S.W.3d at 271).

Nothing in the statutory definition "clearly indicates" a departure from the ordinary and settled understanding of what "homestead" means, including its attendant one-per-couple limit. The definition begins by specifying that a residence homestead must be "owned by one or more individuals." Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(j)(1)(A); cf. Inwood N. Homeowners’ Ass’n v. Harris, 736 S.W.2d 632, 636 (Tex. 1987) ("A homestead may attach to an interest less than an unqualified fee simple title."). The definition then uses the word "residence" or "residential" four times in specifying that an eligible homestead must be designed, used, and adapted as (unsurprisingly) a residence. Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(j)(1).

But nowhere does the definition broaden or otherwise depart from the limits already inherent in the word "homestead," including the rule that a couple may have only one. The one-per-couple limit, therefore, presumably remains intact. See Creative Oil & Gas, 591 S.W.3d at 135. As Miles observed, reading definitions not to depart from settled meanings absent clarity constitutes "a presumption against ‘counterintuitive definitions,’ " such as "a statute defining the word dog to include all horses." 647 S.W.3d at 623–24 (majority opinion) (quoting and citing Scalia & Garner, supra, at 232 & n.29). Much the same here. Despite the definition not eliminating the one-per-couple limit, the Court construes the definition as entitling—for the first time in Texas jurisprudential history—a married couple to two residence homesteads. The Court reaches this counterintuitive construction without acknowledging, much less applying, the presumption against such a result.

The Court instead treats the absence of a confirmation of the existing definition as a rejection, but this is mistaken. As Justice Robert Jackson put it, the "absence of contrary direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a departure from them." Morissette, 342 U.S. at 263, 72 S.Ct. 240. The definition on which the Court relies does nothing more than what the People authorized and expected—not for the legislature to redefine "homestead," but to define "residence homestead" for tax purposes.

Before this authorization, provisions like Article XVI, § 51 informed our understanding of the term’s limits, i.e., a residence homestead is used for the purposes of a home. See Whiteman v. Burkey, 115 Tex. 400, 282 S.W. 788, 788 (1926) (linking "defin[ing]" with "limit[ing] the homestead" (citing Tex. Const, art. XVI, § 51)). The constitutional authority to define "res- idence homestead" sensibly delegates the details of what "residence" means to the legislature. How much land should count? How many buildings? How is the property to be used? What sort of ownership interest is entailed? Rather than send any change to these tedious details back to the People for yet another constitutional amendment, the People delegated them to the legislature. But nothing in this grant of authority means that the legislature must recodify every limit inherent in the concept of a "homestead"—nor did it necessarily mean the legislature had free license to alter every existing limit.^13a

13a See infra Part I.D (describing how the Court’s approach implicates constitutional questions regarding whether the "definitional" authority is unbounded, such that the legislature can call anything a "residence homestead," or if instead that authority is circumscribed to cover only properly that plausibly can be characterized as a homestead and is used as a residence).

Doubling down on the statutory definition, the Court insists that the Article XVI cases "construing homestead protection in a different context (i.e., protection from forced sale) do not answer whether [Mrs.] Johnson qualifies for the Section 11.131(b) exemption." Ante at 855. I might agree if the Court could identify even one case involving Article VIII, Tax Code § 11.13, or Tax Code § 11.131 in which a married couple was permitted multiple residence homesteads. Failing this, the Article XVI cases tell us what "homestead" in "residence homestead" means. The Court still derides the one-per-couple rule as "a hidden, atextual limitation" in the context of Article VIII, ante at 853, but the rule is "hidden" in plain sight and is "atextual" only if the Court refuses to accept that it is part of the word "homestead" as used in our law since the beginning.

* * *

To illustrate why I think the Court is so mistaken to treat "residence homesteads" as something totally separate from, rather than a species of, "homesteads," consider a hypothetical involving an all-too-rare treat: plum pie.

Imagine a fictional town called Plumville that was historically known for baking and consuming pies—think of Granny’s homemade pies fresh out of the oven. Suppose that long ago the Plumville city council passed generous tax-exemption laws for businesses that sold a minimum quantity of plum pies. Eligible businesses claimed the exemption accordingly. And in the landmark case of Mirabelle v. Prune, which echoes throughout Plumville jurisprudence, the court pointedly observed that a "pie" is a "savored baked pastry consisting of a crust base and a sweet fruit filling; it is wholly and fundamentally distinct from donuts, ice cream, cookies, and the like."

That holding was made decades ago—but now, in the present, the city council has included the following definition to accompany the plum-pie exemptions: "For purposes of these exemptions, ‘plum pie’ shall mean a pastry (1) the primary fruit ingredient of which is plum and (2) said plums to be of the Victoria variety."

Businesses that made plum donuts have emerged seeking the plum-pie exemptions. They represent truthfully that they sell the minimum quantity of donuts, which are a pastry, and that their donuts are filled with only one fruit ingredient: delicious Victoria plums. Should these plum-donut businesses get the plum-pie exemption?

No, they would be plum out of luck. The settled understanding of "pie" was not dis- placed by the new tax-exemption definition, which limits rather than expands the plum pies that qualify. Plum donuts are out.

The Court’s line of reasoning, though, would hold that donuts should qualify as pie. The law’s definition of "plum pie," after all, does not expressly exclude donuts—so to the Court it would be "atextual" to do anything but include donuts. Cf. ante at 852–53. Similar to how the Court disregards the settled and historical understanding of the term "homestead" in "residence homestead" the Court would disregard the historical understanding of the term "pie" in "plum pie."

This approach would be mistaken. Just as the definition of "plum pie" serves to distinguish plum pies from, say, pies with a bit of plum but a lot of apple, the "residence homestead" definition serves to distinguish residence homesteads from, for example, business homesteads (or any other homestead that is not going to be what the legislature determined would qualify for the tax exemption). Neither definition—of pie or homestead—alters or departs from the historical meaning of the foundational term. Rather, each definition adds limits to create an even narrower and more precise subsidiary.

Just as the court in Mirabelle v. Prune explained that pie is "wholly and fundamentally distinct from donuts," this Court has repeatedly explained that a married couple may have but one homestead. See supra Part I.A. The council in our fairytale city legislated against that backdrop, just as, here in the real world, the Texas legislature has legislated against the backdrop described in our cases. My whimsical example reflects a serious problem in the Court’s analysis: its abandonment of settled meaning that already is baked into the meaning of "homestead."

2

The Court’s secondary argument for overcoming the one-per-couple limit depends on where within the Tax Code the legislature codified the disabled-veteran exemption. See ante at 850–52, 855–57. It observes that § 11.13(h) applies a one-per-couple limit to tax exemptions codified in that section. See Tex. Tax Code § 11.13(h) (stating, among other things, that a "person may not receive an exemption under this section for more than one residence homestead in the same year"). It further observes that the legislature codified the disabled-veteran exemption in § 11.131, which does not contain a similar subsection (h). We "must presume," says the Court, that this codification reflects "the Legislature’s conscious choice to locate the disabled-veteran exemption outside Section 11.13 so that it would not be subject to the limitations in Section 11.13(h)." Ante at 856.

I find it strange that the Court will presume meaning from the legislature’s codification-location choices but not from the legislature’s decision to use the actual word "homestead" in authorizing residence-homestead tax exemptions. I do not disagree that codification can in some circumstances help elucidate legislative intent, see, e.g., Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 94, 123 S.Ct. 1140, 155 L.Ed.2d 164 (2003) ("Other formal attributes of a legislative enactment, such as the manner of its codification …, are probative of the legislature’s intent."), but it is never superior to the actual statutory text. Nor is it a tool that can show an otherwise-doubtful reading to be free of doubt—and in the tax-exemption context, the Court always has and still should require such clarity. See also infra Part II.

It seems fanciful to think that the legislature really codified § 11.131 separately from § 11.13 not for administrative ease but to escape § 11.13(h)—all for the secret and unstated goal of embracing an unprecedented situation where a married couple, consisting of at least one 100% disabled U.S. military veteran, chooses to live separately and claim separate residence homesteads for which they will collectively benefit under Texas law. If the legislature wanted to depart from the term of art’s settled meaning, especially in the tax-exemption context, it would have just said so. The better explanation involves less clandestine intricacy than the Court attributes to the legislature: it simply distinguished the § 11.131 exemption from all others to highlight a very different kind of tax exemption—an extraordinary (and well deserved) total tax exemption for a 100% disabled veteran.

The Court’s codification rationale suffers from the same deficiency as the definitional one: neither relies on clear statutory or constitutional text eliminating the deeply embedded one-per-couple limit. An intended departure from such a settled meaning would surely be clear. But at a minimum, there is at least some doubt regarding these potentially competing intentions of the legislature’s codification choice—and, as I reiterate in Part II, the presence of any doubt is fatal to a claim that a statute creates a tax exemption.

D

The Court’s mistaken understanding of how the legislature has defined and codified the residence-homestead exemptions is bad enough. But these mistakes rely on yet another dangerous premise—the assumption that the legislature could properly alter the one-per-couple limit without voter approval. Maybe the Constitution’s grant of definitional authority goes that far, maybe not. The Court’s view seems to be that the authority to define "residence homestead" is unbounded. My construction of the statutory text retains the traditional one-per-couple meaning. "This construction," unlike the Court’s, "avoids the doubt which otherwise might arise as to the constitutional point, and therefore is to be adopted if reasonably possible." United States v. Shreveport Grain & Elevator Co., 287 U.S. 77, 82, 53 S.Ct. 42, 77 L.Ed. 175 (1932). The Court’s unbounded approach strikes me as, at the least, problematic. Choosing between the Court’s interpretation and mine should therefore be easy. "[W]e should, if possible, interpret statutes in a manner to avoid constitutional infirmities." Osterberg v. Peca, 12 S.W.3d 31, 51 (Tex. 2000). I therefore turn to this traditional constitutional-avoidance doctrine.

The problem is this; the Court reads the legislature’s constitutional authorization to "define" the residence homestead and its separate power to codify exemptions for all their worth. Even if the Court were right that this authority means that all preexisting attributes of the word "homestead" disappear unless they are restated in a definition or in each codification of an exemption, can it be serious in thinking that the People gave the legislature carte blanche to effectuate fundamental changes to the term homestead?

If so, then I suppose that all the legislature has to do to exempt anything from taxation is to define it as a "residence homestead." A billion-dollar high-tech manufacturing facility—residence homestead! All the train tracks running across the state—residence homestead! A massive resort with a major conference center and a thousand guest rooms—residence homestead! All the intangible property of a corporation—residence homestead! An enormous plum inventory—residence homestead! And if the legislature wants families or single adults to have an infinite number of homesteads, then it could similarly adjust the statutory definition of "residence homestead," or at least codify the particular exemption separately from subsections like § 11.13(h). No wand in any fairy tale was as powerful as the one that the Court thinks the legislature was given through its power to "define" and codify residence-homestead exemptions.

These powers might be so unbounded— so unbounded, in fact, that the words "homestead" and "residence" cease to have any meaning. "Residence homestead" would be a mere label, and the constitutional provision would not really authorize "residence homestead" exemptions—it would be a general tax-exemption provision in which the legislature could exempt anything so long as it took the odd step of labeling something that is neither a residence nor a homestead a "residence homestead." I suppose that is one reading of the definitional authority. But another is that it does what I described above, see supra at 868–69: it allows the legislature, within the broad zone of plausible homesteads that are used as residences, to define what features that will count for residence-homestead tax-exemption purposes. So maybe a 1,000-acre ranch could count as a homestead—but the legislature can exclude that ranch if it does not also serve as the claimant’s residence. Or if 1,000 acres is too much to reasonably treat as a residence homestead (and our law indeed imposes narrower limits), it can limit the acreage to be so defined. Or if it wants to determine a maximum valuation that can be exempted, it could do so by statute without having to yet again amend the Constitution. That sort of "definition" is exactly what the constitutional text sensibly anticipates.

But if the Court really means that this incredible authority resides in the "definition" and codification-location power, then it has resolved a serious constitutional question (and probably gotten it wrong). If the Court is not prepared to go so far—if the Court would balk at allowing the legislature to wave the homestead wand at the examples I have given—then that must mean that there are some limits as to what a "residence homestead" can mean whether or not they are stated in a statutory "definition." And if there are any limits that survive without being expressly stated in a statute, then I cannot see why the ancient one-per-couple limit is not one of them. It is at least a serious question.

Sticking with what we know the legislature has understood "homestead" to mean, in other words, properly avoids a much larger constitutional question. And if the Court’s "definition" theory cannot allow it to dispense with the traditional one-per-couple limit, then it has no basis to do so other than its desire to get to today’s result.

It would be better to do what we historically have done: rely on constitutional amendments to affect fundamental changes to our understanding of the term, such as the 1973 amendment allowing single adults to claim a homestead interest. See supra note 11. No amendment eliminates the one-per-couple limit. If the legislature thinks it can do so by mere statute, then fine—let it say so clearly. Then there is no constitutional question to avoid. If the People want to adopt such a change in the Constitution itself, then fine—let them say so clearly, and then there will be nothing to litigate.

The one thing we should not do is what the Court does: get ahead of the People and the legislature and do it ourselves. Avoiding serious constitutional issues maintains the proper boundary between the judiciary and the other branches. "[O]ne of the canon’s chief justifications is that it allows courts to avoid the decision of constitutional questions. It is a tool for choosing between competing plausible interpretations of a statutory text, resting on the reasonable presumption that Congress did not intend the alternative which raises serious constitutional doubts." Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371, 381, 125 S.Ct. 716, 160 L.Ed.2d 734 (2005).

* * *

The one-per-couple limit inherent in the disabled-veteran residence-homestead exemption bars the Johnsons from obtaining (via Mrs. Johnson) the extra exemption as a matter of law.

II

I do not see any remaining room for any married couple to claim two separate residence homesteads. But if there were any room left, it would be squeezed out by the standard of review that we are supposed to apply to any tax exemption: extreme doubt. I have invoked this principle in Part I and conclude with some brief remarks about it now—and particularly the consequences of dispensing with it.

The Court at least says the right things: "Statutory exemptions from taxation are subject to strict construction because they undermine equality and uniformity by placing a greater burden on some taxpaying businesses and individuals rather than placing the burden on all taxpayers equally." Ante at 848.^14a The exemption "must affirmatively appear," the "taxpayer has the burden to clearly show that an exemption applies, and all doubts are resolved against the granting of an exemption." Id. at 848 (emphasis added).

14a In the context of protection from forced sales, we also "construe homestead laws generously." Norris v Thomas, 215 S.W.3d 851, 853 (Tex. 2007). Even in that non-tax-exemption context, that standard has never been successfully wielded against the one-per-couple limit See Whiteman, 282 S W at 789 (stating "the courts cannot protect that which is not homestead")

At minimum, the historic reading of "homestead" to exclude more than one per married couple creates textually based "doubt" about whether the legislature actually has allowed such a result. Under the very standards that the Court recites, we must therefore resolve the claim "against" the Johnsons, who seek the exemption.

Said differently, nothing in the Court’s analysis rests on clear text departing from the settled understanding that a couple may have no more than one homestead. That understanding ought to remain until clearly revoked by the legislature. And nothing that the Court points to in the law is necessarily inconsistent or incompatible with that settled limit. Absent an unmistakable departure from the one-per-couple meaning, we should read the disabled-veteran exemption to conform to our ordinary understanding of Texas homestead jurisprudence. It is an understatement that there is some doubt about whether the law authorizes a double exemption for the Johnsons.

The problem with interpreting the statute as the Court does transcends today’s case. It affects all tax legislation. The legislature and the People should be able to rely on this Court’s repeated assurances that we will not find a tax exemption unless it is completely clear and there is no doubt. So whatever motivated the legisla- ture’s choices concerning codification or other matters of drafting the statute at issue here, the legislature at least should have been able to assure itself that it had not inadvertently created a new tax exemption. Whatever else a statute says, in other words, we have told the legislature that we would follow this stable background rule: the courts will wait for the legislature to be utterly unambiguous about tax exemptions before finding such exemptions.

This promise allows the legislature to do its job, but it is a promise that now has been broken. In the future, the legislature will have to invest new resources in all tax legislation—it will have to worry about hidden tax exemptions. There is no longer any assurance that this Court and lower courts will not conjure new exemptions from silence (like the failure to textually reiterate what always existed and needs no reiteration) or from other sources that may be useful in general statutory interpretation but are not legitimate grounds to create tax exemptions (like the location of codification). If this statute clearly and unambiguously, free from all doubt, creates the first-in-history two-per-couple exemption, then the sky is the limit. The Court claims to follow the clear-and-unambiguous canon for tax exemptions, but it in fact discards it, and that seems like a pretty high price to pay.

* * *

I am sorry that the Johnsons have formally separated. I have no desire that they divorce, which would allow each to have a homestead. May they instead remain married in happiness and in reconciliation. They may, of course, order their affairs as they wish, and I do not presume to advise them. As a separated couple, however, the Johnsons remain a married couple. "Limited divorces, a mensa et thoro (‘from bed and board’), are unknown to the law of Texas." Tanton v. State Nat’l Bank of El Paso, 125 Tex. 16, 79 S.W.2d 833, 835 (1935). Separated couples are entitled to one homestead like all other married couples. The Johnsons may not have another. The Court should reverse and render for this reason. Because the Court does not, I respectfully dissent.