Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Three amicus briefs — from Disability Rights Texas, the Texas Business Law Foundation and Texans for Lawsuit Reform — have been filed in the case. While the groups seek different outcomes, Disability Rights Texas and Texans for Lawsuit Reform agree on one issue: the Texas Supreme Court should take the case and issue a decision on the constitutionality issue.
Attorney Susan C. Norman registered a domestic limited liability partnership under the California-based law firm’s name after discovering the firm’s foreign limited liability partnership registration had lapsed on the Texas secretary of state website, and Bradley B. Beers filed an assumed name certificate. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found the lawyers’ conduct “unbecoming of the profession,” and a U.S. district judge said he wasn’t sure whether he was obligated to refer the lawyers to the Texas State Bar for investigation.
Authorizations for the Texas LNG Brownsville and Rio Grande LNG facilities were vacated by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and returned for a second time to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for further environmental scrutiny. The court said FERC was "arbitrary and capricious" in efforts to side-step environmental justice requirements in the approval process.
Dolcefino Communications, a for-hire investigative firm run by former longtime Houston television news reporter Wayne Dolcefino, had argued the specific dollar amounts the nonprofit paid to each performer during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo had to be disclosed in response to his open records request. The First Court of Appeals panel determined otherwise in this case of first impression.
The Fifth Circuit majority zeroed in on the “double-layered delegation” of the authority to set the tax rate for the universal service fund, which is used to subsidize phone and internet services for rural and low-income areas, as well as schools, hospitals and libraries, across the country. With the holding, the conservative Fifth Circuit did what the Sixth, Eleventh and D.C. circuits had declined to do in cases brought by the conservative nonprofit Consumers’ Research against the FCC raising this same issue.
Doubling down on an argument that was central in its original petition to the court, The Boeing Company told the Texas Supreme Court in a motion for rehearing filed Wednesday that without intervention, Texas will remain “a national outlier on conflict preemption under the federal Railway Labor Act.” The aerospace company is hoping to bring an end to a lawsuit brought by the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association alleging Boeing’s false representations about the airworthiness of the 737 MAX aircraft cost it millions of dollars.
The Texas Supreme Court reviewed 96 cases from the state's 14 intermediate appellate courts this past term. Overall, the distribution of outcomes varied, with some courts experiencing a higher rate of affirmations while others saw more reversals or mixed decisions. The Lawbook examined the performance of the appeals courts by the state's highest judicial authority.
One little word within the text of the Texas Citizens Participation Act effectively disincentivizes First Amendment lawyers from taking libel and defamation cases on a pro bono basis. Two lawyers who have won dismissal of such lawsuits brought against their pro bono clients spoke to The Lawbook about prospects for a legislative fix this upcoming session.
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