By Hightower                                    H.B. No. 2533

      75R7952 DAK-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to liability of an owner of property on the shoreline of a

 1-3     lake for damages arising from a failure to construct or maintain

 1-4     adequate shoreline protection.

 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-6           SECTION 1.  Title 4, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is

 1-7     amended by adding Chapter 99 to read as follows:

 1-8                      CHAPTER 99.  LAKESHORE PROTECTION

 1-9           Sec. 99.001.  DAMAGES FOR FAILURE TO CONSTRUCT OR MAINTAIN

1-10     ADEQUATE SHORELINE PROTECTION.  A person is entitled to recover

1-11     damages to the person's property located on the shoreline of a lake

1-12     in this state from another owner of property located on the

1-13     shoreline of the lake if the person shows:

1-14                 (1)  the person's property suffered damages resulting

1-15     from erosion as the result of flooding of the lake;

1-16                 (2)  the person, through a bulkhead or other method of

1-17     shoreline protection, protected the person's property in a manner

1-18     reasonably designed to prevent the property damage from occurring;

1-19     and

1-20                 (3)  the property damages were proximately caused by

1-21     the failure of the other owner of property to construct or maintain

1-22     a bulkhead or other method of shoreline protection reasonably

1-23     designed to prevent the property damage from occurring.

1-24           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997, and

 2-1     applies only to a cause of action that accrues on or after that

 2-2     date.  An action that accrued before the effective date of this Act

 2-3     is governed by the law applicable to the action immediately before

 2-4     the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect

 2-5     for that purpose.

 2-6           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-7     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-8     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-9     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

2-10     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.