Does “sovereign immunity” mean Texas agencies can steal our property?

Earlier this week I addressed a story about a horrible ruling at a court of appeals in Texas. It was our friend Bob Zimmerman at behindtheblack.com who alerted me to the story in a post headlined: “Texas court says it is okay for Texas university to steal.”

The story involves a lawsuit against the University of Houston by a Texas professional photographer who found that U of H was using his copyrighted work online and in print. U of H obtained the work online and removed the copyright notice according to the suit.

The photo used by U of H was costly to produce having required a hired helicopter by the photographer, one Jim Olive, and in a ruling that can only be categorized as absurd and endorsing theft, as well as extending the idea of sovereign immunity to gross distances, the Court of Appeals for The First District of Texas ruled not only the university’s use of Olive’s image does not comprise a “taking” of his property without compensation, it also ruled that Olive should pay the university’s legal costs.

Many of you have not understood my seeming hostility toward our big state universities but herein is an example of why we should all rethink what we have allowed these institutions to become.

University of Houston does not appear to dispute that it lifted and used Mr. Olive’s intellectual property but simply claims that it doesn’t have to follow laws and asserted sovereign immunity saying it can’t be sued.

That ridiculous claim prompted the suit being changed to a “takings” claim and now a court says not only too bad, U of H can steal whatever intellectual property it wants, if you object you have to pay the legal costs it may suffer.

This is one of the worst rulings I have ever heard of in Texas in decades. It needs to be overturned by the Supreme Court and voters need to turn out the judges on the First Court of Appeals.