1-1  By:  Turner                                           S.B. No. 1581
    1-2        (In the Senate - Filed March 13, 1995; March 22, 1995, read
    1-3  first time and referred to Committee on Jurisprudence;
    1-4  April 19, 1995, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 6,
    1-5  Nays 0; April 19, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-6                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-7                                AN ACT
    1-8  relating to the recovery of attorney's fees in certain proceedings
    1-9  under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act.
   1-10        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-11        SECTION 1.  Section 37.009, Civil Practice and Remedies Code,
   1-12  is amended to read as follows:
   1-13        Sec. 37.009.  COSTS.  In any proceeding under this chapter,
   1-14  the court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney's
   1-15  fees as are equitable and just.  Nothing in this section authorizes
   1-16  an award of costs or attorney's fees against any governmental unit
   1-17  as that term is defined in Section 101.001.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  The changes in law made by this Act apply only to
   1-19  a cause of action that accrues on or after the effective date of
   1-20  this Act.  A cause of action that accrues before the effective date
   1-21  of this Act is governed by the law in effect on the date the cause
   1-22  of action accrued, and that law is continued in effect for this
   1-23  purpose.
   1-24        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
   1-25        SECTION 4.  If any section, sentence, clause, or part of this
   1-26  Act shall, for any reason, be held invalid, such invalidity shall
   1-27  not affect the remaining portions of the Act, and it is hereby
   1-28  declared to be the intention of this legislature to have passed
   1-29  each section, sentence, clause, or part irrespective of the fact
   1-30  that any other section, sentence, clause, or part may be declared
   1-31  invalid.
   1-32        SECTION 5.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-33  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-34  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-35  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-36  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
   1-37                               * * * * *