Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
When Cash Biz, a payday lender, didn’t get paid on time, they sought help from the criminal justice system. Now faced with lawsuits for their overstep, the company is claiming a right to arbitration, ,but the Texas Supreme Court is going to have a say about that. Janet Elliott has the details in The Texas Lawbook.
The Texas Supreme Court has agreed to hear Forest Oil’s challenge to a $16 million arbitration award over drilling waste pollution on the 27,000-acre McAllen Ranch in Hidalgo County. The neutrality of an arbitrator and the panel’s jurisdiction over the dispute are among the issues raised in a long-running dispute that has been before the Supreme Court previously, producing a 2008 decision that allowed the arbitration to proceed.
An appeals court’s use of Wikipedia to define the term “welfare queen” is under review by the Texas Supreme Court in a closely watched libel case involving D Magazine. Media groups urge the court to be cautious in embracing online sources, particularly an open-source website like Wikipedia. The online “encyclopedia” allows users to make and edit entries, which may heighten the potential for inaccurate and biased information.
In a case with potentially huge implications for beer and wine retailers, the Texas Supreme Court is weighing how much of a stake in a brewery could trigger Texas laws designed to separate brewers and retailers. Mexican convenience store operator Cadena Comercial is appealing the state’s denial of a permit to sell beer and wine in its planned Texas stores. Wal-Mart and other retailers are closely watching the case to see if the court adopts a strict “single-share” standard in determining ownership interests.
The Texas Supreme Court is revisiting the high-profile issue of when pipelines are common carriers allowed to condemn private property. Once again the dispute involves the Denbury Green Pipeline that transports carbon dioxide through southeast Texas.
A Beaumont TV station is seeking attorney’s fees under the Texas Citizens Participation Act after winning dismissal of a libel lawsuit filed over a broadcast about a doctor’s disciplinary order. In its first decision involving a media defendant seeking dismissal of a defamation case under the act, a divided Texas Supreme Court last month reversed an appeals court and a trial court that had denied the station’s motion to dismiss.
The Texas Supreme Court recently reversed a $752,000 judgment against Union Pacific, finding no evidence that the railroad could have reduced the risk of West Nile in a mosquito-laden area near the Gulf Coast. In it's ruling, the court recognized the common-law doctrine of ferae naturae, which protects landowners from liability for harm caused by wild animals or insects.
Texas justices ruled that electronic communications between a Canadian company and a Houston firm negotiating the sale of Colombian mineral assets were insufficient to confer Texas jurisdiction over the Canadian company. A strongly worded dissent accused the majority of ignoring the realities of complex business negotiations in a time where e-mail communication is the norm.
The Texas Supreme Court dashed the hopes of drillers, concrete providers, business groups and limited government advocates in a ruling that turned on the role that pipes and tubes play in the physical changes of oil and gas moving from underground to the surface.
An Edinburg doctors’ hospital is not liable for a botched delivery by one of its physician partners because the doctor was not acting with authority of the partnership, justices ruled Friday. The decision clarified a situation in which a limited partner in a doctor-owned hospital also practices at the hospital. The court said that such doctors are acting under their separate admitting privileges, not with any authority of the partnership.
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