By:  Turner                                           S.B. No. 1581
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the recovery of attorney's fees under the Declaratory
    1-2  Judgment Act.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 37.009, Civil Practice and Remedies Code,
    1-5  is amended to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 37.009.  COSTS.  In any proceeding under this chapter,
    1-7  the court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney's
    1-8  fees as are equitable and just.  Nothing under this section
    1-9  authorizes an award of costs or attorney's fees against any
   1-10  governmental unit as that term is defined in Section 101.001 of
   1-11  this code.
   1-12        SECTION 2.  The changes in law made by this Act apply only to
   1-13  a cause of action that accrues on or after the effective date of
   1-14  this Act.  A cause of action that accrues before the effective date
   1-15  of this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the cause
   1-16  of action accrued, and that law is continued in effect for this
   1-17  purpose.
   1-18        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-19        SECTION 4.  SEVERABILITY.  If any section, sentence, clause,
   1-20  or part of this Act shall, for any reason, be held invalid, such
   1-21  invalidity shall not affect the remaining portions of the Act, and
   1-22  it is hereby declared to be the intention of this legislature to
   1-23  have passed each section, sentence, clause, or part irrespective of
    2-1  the fact that any other section, sentence, clause, or part may be
    2-2  declared invalid.
    2-3        SECTION 5.  EMERGENCY.  The importance of this legislation
    2-4  and the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-5  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-6  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-7  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.