Texas Panel Says State Law Bars El Paso Conspiracy Suit in Cross-Border Dispute

A divided El Paso appellate court ruling has ended, for now, a lawsuit alleging former participants in a soured land deal had manipulated the Mexican criminal justice system to have a businessman thrown in a Juarez prison and subsequently to extort a $2.1 million payment from him. 

The 2-1 ruling from the Eighth Court of Appeals, issued Wednesday in the dispute between Juan Alvarez Gottwald and Rosa Delgado Dominguez De Cano and three other members of the Delgado family, clarifies that it’s the trial judge’s discretion to determine whether Texas or Mexico law applies to determine res judiciata, or whether the dispute has already been settled and cannot be relitigated. The majority held that the litigation of a related suit in Juarez, Mexico, barred this one from proceeding in El Paso under Texas law.