City of Missouri City v. State ex rel. City of Alvin

In City of Missouri City v. State ex rel. City of Alvin, 123 S.W.3d 606, 617 (Tex. App.--Houston 14th Dist. 2003, pet. denied), the State, on behalf of the City of Alvin, filed a quo warranto action against Missouri City, alleging that it had illegally annexed land in Alvin's territorial limits and violated statutory law by extending its territory into Alvin's extra-territorial jurisdiction without consent and annexing a strip of land less than 1000 feet wide at its narrowest point. 123 S.W.3d at 608-09, 611; see Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Ann. 42.041, 43.0545 (Vernon 2008). Alvin filed a petition in intervention seeking declaratory relief. Missouri City, 123 S.W.3d at 610. Missouri City asserted that a quo warranto proceeding was required to challenge the annexation and Alvin could not maintain the action on its own. Id. at 610-11. The court, after noting that Alvin's issues were "identical to those in the quo warranto action," held that Alvin "could have brought the challenge in its own name" as a "private challenge to annexation is permitted when an annexation ordinance is void because a municipality exceeded its authority to annex." Id. at 617.