Opinion
No. 06-03-00086-CV.
Submitted: March 22, 2004.
Decided: March 23, 2004.
On Appeal from the 5th Judicial District Court, Bowie County, Texas, Trial Court No. 98C1607-005.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Richard Allen Kleven, II, sued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, and others for misappropriation of his personal property. He sought damages in the amount of $164.45. The trial court dismissed Kleven's suit for want of subject-matter jurisdiction because the amount Kleven sought in damages was less than $200.00. We affirm.
As this Court explained in Arteaga v. Jackson, Historically, a district court's minimum amount in controversy was $500.00, as set out by Article 1906 of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes. This statutory provision was omitted when Article 1906 was codified into the Government Code, because it duplicated the constitution's jurisdictional grant. Tex. Gov't Code Ann. § 24.007 revisor's note (Vernon 1988). The district court's constitutional minimum-amount-in-controversy jurisdiction was deleted as a part of the 1985 amendment of Tex. Const. art. V, § 8. As a result of this deletion, the district court's minimum-amount-in-controversy jurisdiction was reduced from $500.00 to $200.01. Tex. Const. art. V, § 19 provides: "Justice of the peace courts shall have . . . exclusive jurisdiction in civil matters where the amount in controversy is two hundred dollars or less. . . ."
Arteaga states in his petition that he was damaged in the amount of $200.00. This is not within the jurisdictional ambit of a state district court. When a plaintiff specifically pleads an amount below the jurisdiction of the district court, he has effectively pleaded himself out of court. See Peek v. Equipment Serv. Co. of San Antonio, 779 S.W.2d 802, 804 (Tex. 1989).
994 S.W.2d 342, 342-43 (Tex. App.-Texarkana 1999, pet. denied) (footnotes omitted).
In the case now before us, Kleven sought damages of less than $200.00. This amount does not satisfy the minimum requirement to invoke the subject-matter jurisdiction of a district court. See Tex. Const. art. V, § 19. The trial court properly found it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Kleven's primary cause of action.
Kleven's lawsuit, however, also sought declaratory relief. A request for declaratory relief alone is insufficient to establish jurisdiction in a trial court. Chenault v. Phillips, 914 S.W.2d 140, 141 (Tex. 1996). The Texas Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act is merely "a procedural device for deciding cases already within a court's jurisdiction." State v. Morales, 869 S.W.2d 941, 947 (Tex. 1994).
In this case, the trial court's jurisdiction over Kleven's declaratory judgment claims was limited by its jurisdiction over Kleven's primary claim for damages under the misappropriation cause of action. When the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the primary claim, it could not exercise jurisdiction to consider Kleven's secondary issues. Cf. Chenault, 914 S.W.2d at 141-42 (Texas Supreme Court lacked original jurisdiction to consider challenge to attorney occupation tax); Power v. Chapman, 994 S.W.2d 331 (Tex. App.-Texarkana 1999, no pet.) (county court at law properly dismissed remaining claims that exceeded court's $100,000.00 jurisdictional limit); and Kadish v. Pennington Assoc., L.P., 948 S.W.2d 301, 304 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, no writ) (trial court had jurisdiction over declaratory judgment claim because plaintiff brought additional claim that satisfied the amount in controversy requirement necessary to invoke the district court's jurisdiction). Accordingly, the trial court properly dismissed Kleven's suit for want of jurisdiction.
Because the jurisdictional issue is dispositive of Kleven's appeal, we need not consider his remaining points of error. We affirm the trial court's judgment.