By Gallego                                            H.B. No. 3153
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the recovery of attorney's fees under the Declaratory
    1-3  Judgment Act.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 37.009, Civil Practice and Remedies Code,
    1-6  is amended to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 37.009.  Costs.  In any proceeding under this chapter,
    1-8  the court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney's
    1-9  fees as are equitable and just.  Nothing under this section
   1-10  authorizes an award of costs or attorney's fees against any
   1-11  governmental unit as that term is defined in Section 101.001 of
   1-12  this code.
   1-13        SECTION 2.  The changes in law made by this Act apply only to
   1-14  a cause of action that accrues on or after the effective date of
   1-15  this Act.  A cause of action that accrues before the effective date
   1-16  of this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the cause
   1-17  of action accrued, and that law is continued in effect for this
   1-18  purpose.
   1-19        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-20        SECTION 4.  SEVERABILITY.  If any section, sentence, clause,
   1-21  or part of this Act shall, for any reason, be held invalid, such
   1-22  invalidity shall not affect the remaining portions of the Act, and
   1-23  it is hereby declared to be the intention of this legislature to
    2-1  have passed each section, sentence, clause, or part irrespective of
    2-2  the fact that any other section, sentence, clause, or part may be
    2-3  declared invalid.
    2-4        SECTION 5.  EMERGENCY.  The importance of this legislation
    2-5  and the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-6  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-7  constitutional rule requiring bill to be read on three several days
    2-8  in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.