EL PASO — On November 11, Redford resident Barbara Baskin filed an appeal of a lower court decision saying Presidio County was immune from her lawsuit, which alleged that county negligence led to the failure of flood-prevention infrastructure near her home.
The filing in the Texas 8th Court of Appeals claims 394th District Judge Roy Ferguson was wrong to dismiss the case on July 30 after a March 4 hearing in which the county’s attorney said the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because state law shields government entities from most lawsuits claiming damages — even in cases where the entity is clearly negligent.
Baskin filed the suit shortly after the night of May 27, 2023, when her home was flooded thanks to a breach in a county-maintained dam. Her homestead –– located just below Highway 170 along County Road 18 –– has historically been protected by a detention pond designed to corral water from routine seasonal flooding. The pond was built to channel water into an acequia, an irrigation canal built and used by Redford’s original land grant families in the late 19th century.
That night, the pond failed, leaving a gash of about 12 feet in the pond wall. Water and debris flowed in from both sides of the road, knocking over Baskin’s gate and submerging her field and her historic adobe home in around two feet of water. “Only luck and quick thinking prevented Ms. Baskin and her dog, Lucy, and two mules from being swept away and dying or sustaining severe injuries,” Baskin’s attorney John Sopuch wrote in her lawsuit’s original complaint.
Baskin had long been concerned about the integrity of the pond, which she alleged had been neglected by the county’s Road and Bridge Department. Just two months before the flooding, Baskin was slated to present to the Presidio County Commissioners Court on the status of the retention pond dam. County Judge Joe Portillo pulled the presentation from the agenda for lack of time, Baskin said, and later wouldn’t return calls to reschedule.
In March, Sopuch argued during a hearing that an exception under law to county immunity applied here — damages caused by employees driving motor-driven equipment — with the county’s use of backhoes, bulldozers and trucks in work that led to the dam break.
The county, represented by its Texas Association of Counties (TAC) attorney Denis Dennis, argued that there needed to be a direct “nexus” between the equipment and the actual damage. He said that too much time had passed between the allegations of faulty pond maintenance work and the flooding.
Not considered at all in the hearing were allegations by Baskin that Road and Bridge Director Ruben Carrasco purposely compromised the pond and the surrounding drainage features because of a personal grudge. Also not considered were Carrasco’s failure to respond to numerous directions from then County Judge Cinderela Guevara to fix the pond and adjoining drainage. Arguments were confined to the motor-driven-vehicle exception to immunity.
The county’s TAC risk pool insurance is covering most of the legal costs for the case, with the exception of deductibles. It’s unclear what those deductibles are, as the county has been unable to locate its policy after The Big Bend Sentinel asked to review it this summer.