For this episode of Landowner Insider, I sat down with trial attorneys Steve Harrison and Justin Presnal of Harrison Davis, based in Waco and Beaumont, to talk about what happens once a transmission line route has actually been selected across a ranch or rural property. I’ve covered the earlier stage of this process before with attorney Carly Barton, back when the routes for the Dinosaur Longshore transmission line project were still proposed. That route is now finalized, and this conversation picks up exactly where landowners on it find themselves today: eminent domain, condemnation, compensation, and what happens to the rest of a property once part of it is taken.
Trial Lawyers, Not Administrative Lawyers
Steve and Justin were direct about what they do and don’t do. They aren’t involved in the Public Utility Commission process that decides where a line actually gets routed, that’s administrative law, and in their experience it’s an expensive, heavily political process with very little real influence available to an individual landowner. Where they come in is after a route is set: representing landowners in the condemnation process itself, fighting for fair compensation in front of special commissioners and, if necessary, a jury. Steve’s background includes representing ranch families in wildfire litigation across the Panhandle and in this part of the state, and both attorneys have direct experience fighting the earlier generation of CREZ transmission lines that came through Bosque and Erath counties roughly a decade ago. Their read on the power companies is blunt: in their experience, utilities don’t pay landowners what they should until a trial lawyer makes it clear they’re prepared to take the case to a jury.
Why This Round of Lines Is Different
The current wave of transmission line construction traces back to a 2023 legislative session bill meant to address power demand in the Permian Basin. According to Justin, what started as a plan focused on West Texas turned into a statewide transmission buildout once ERCOT and the PUC got involved, driven by a mix of oil field electrification, data center growth, and general population growth. The lines themselves are also physically bigger. These new 765-kilovolt lines can carry five to six times the power of the 345-kilovolt lines already common across the state, which means larger towers, wider easements, and a visual and practical impact on the landscape unlike anything Texas landowners have dealt with before.
What Happens When the Utility Company Contacts You
The first real interaction most landowners have is a request for survey access. Texas law requires you to allow that access, but Justin was clear that landowners can and should negotiate the terms: notice requirements, timing, how gates are handled, and accommodations for livestock or hunting leases. This is the point at which he recommends bringing in a lawyer, before survey crews ever set foot on the property, not after an offer letter arrives.
The Condemnation Process, Step by Step
Once the utility company makes what’s legally required to be a “good faith offer,” and in Steve and Justin’s experience that offer is rarely fair on its own, a landowner who declines it will see the utility file a condemnation lawsuit. From there, a judge appoints a panel of special commissioners, local landowners rather than lawyers, who hold a hearing and assign a value. Steve and Justin treat that special commissioners’ hearing with the same seriousness as an actual trial, because the amount awarded meaningfully shapes what happens next. If either side disagrees with that award, the case can proceed to a jury trial, and importantly, if the utility company wants to appeal a high award, it has to post that money first. Historically, both special commissioner awards and jury verdicts have landed significantly higher than a utility’s original offer.
Why “Remainder Damages” Are the Real Fight
The easement payment itself is often the easier number to agree on. The harder and more important fight, in Justin’s words, is over remainder damages: how a transmission line affects the value of everything outside the actual right-of-way. He described reviewing an appraisal where a city taking a strip of land for a retention pond, land that happened to be a property’s only access point, assigned zero dollars in damage to the remaining 20 acres. That’s the pattern they see from utility companies as well, and it’s where a legal team with access to real appraisers and ag economists makes a measurable difference in outcome.
What This Means for Property Value and Marketability
This is where my own experience as a broker lines up directly with what Steve and Justin see in litigation. High-end buyers routinely eliminate properties with a transmission line before ever stepping foot on them. On a recent tour of twenty properties with a serious buyer, every property with a visible line got less than five minutes of attention before we moved on, and the average price point on those ranches was around $10 million. That’s not a hypothetical loss of value, it’s buyers actively removing themselves from the pool, and it’s a permanent condition for the property and every future owner of it.
How Landowners Actually Hire a Trial Lawyer
Harrison Davis works these cases on contingency, meaning their fee comes out of the amount recovered above the utility’s original offer, not an hourly rate charged to the landowner. That structure covers the cost of appraisers, ag economists, and other experts needed to build a credible damages case, with no out-of-pocket cost to the client during the litigation itself.
What’s Next
This conversation is part one of a two-part discussion with Steve and Justin. Part two covers wildfire litigation and what landowners impacted by wildfires, an increasingly common and devastating issue across Texas, need to understand about their rights and options.
Watch the Full Episode
This article is based on my conversation with Steve Harrison and Justin Presnal of Harrison Davis on Landowner Insider.
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Work With Mock Ranches
If a transmission line project could affect a property you own or are considering buying, understanding how it impacts value and marketability matters before you make a decision. Explore current Texas land for sale at mockranches.com, and revisit our earlier conversation on eminent domain and transmission lines for more on how the routing process works before a route is finalized.
About Harrison Davis
Thanks to Steve Harrison and Justin Presnal of Harrison Davis, trial attorneys based in Waco and Beaumont who represent Texas landowners in condemnation and eminent domain cases involving transmission lines, pipelines, and other infrastructure projects. Learn more at thetriallawyers.com.
