In its 1998 report “Payola Justice,” Texans for Public Justice said that a 1996 Texas Supreme Court opinion, Enron v. Spring Independent School District, overturned a lower appellate court to save Enron from paying $15 million in gas inventory taxes to the Spring [Texas] Independent School District (SISD). TPJ based this information on Justice Owen’s final opinion in the case, which says, “According to SISD, this resulted in a loss of tax revenue of just under $15 million.” On this point, Owen’s final opinion was wrong. In fact, there was a $15 million difference in value of the underlying gas inventory property that the school district taxed. Enron’s actual tax break on that property, according to the lower appeals court record, was $224,989, not $15 million.

See 922 S.W.2d 931; 1996 Tex.