SCOTX Inks a Bummer for Hempsters
The Texas Supreme Court determines hemp dealers have no constitutional right to manufacture hemp to smoke.
High-Speed Rail Gets SCOTX Approval in Eminent-Domain Challenge
The Texas Supreme Court held that the two companies seeking to take private property for the controversial Dallas-to-Houston high-speed rail have a statutory right to exercise eminent domain to take right-of-way for the 240-mile rail line.
‘Sanctuary Cities’ on SCOTX Schedule in Fall, but the Issue is Defamation Protection Under Texas Citizens Participation Act
Two grants, consolidated for argument, raise facts and issues that will capture headlines, but both raise questions under the citizens participation act, the pervasive interlocutory scheme intended to provide a quick dismissal ramp for claims based on free-speech issues. Both cases focus on efforts to create anti-abortion “sanctuary” cities throughout Texas. And both involve an ordinance, the first of several, declaring Waskom to be a sanctuary city. But the proponents didn’t stop there.
Texas Supreme Court Answers Certified Questions in a Way that Package Liquor Stores Worry May Open Floodgates to Big Retailers
The court answered certified questions from the Fifth Circuit asking it to interpret state liquor laws banning public corporations from owning package-store permits in Texas. But, in doing so, justices determine an exempt corporation, exempted by a grandfather clause that allows a public corporation to own liquor stores, should not forfeit its exemption by selling interests to ease debt in a Chapter 11 reorganization.
Texas Supreme Court Holds Against Texas A.G., Clarifies Rules for Soliciting Mail-in Ballots
The Texas Supreme Court has held a challenge to an "election integrity" law as too broad in its sweep to limit how Texas voting officials "solicit" mail-in ballots.
Baker Botts Secures Partial Win for Union Pacific in Environmental Lawsuit
The plaintiffs, according to court records, seek more than $100 million in damages for wrongful death, physical impairment, disfigurement, mental anguish and loss of use and enjoyment of real property. Houston's 14th Court of Appeals dismissed some claims against Union Pacific but sent the case back to Harris County District Court to determine the fate of the others.
Texas Supreme Court to Review Houston Astros-Sale Case
Next up in the lineup challenging the 2011 sale of the Houston Astros: the Texas Supreme Court. After the court granted review of former Astros owner Drayton McLane’s petition contesting lower court holdings that the new owner might have paid too much, a principal issue on deck is whether the sale can be reversed.
A Doctor’s Struggle to Clear His Reputation Got More Complicated When a Judge Found His Sanction Baseless
First the Texas Medical Board temporarily slapped an Austin neurologist with a sanction for unprofessional patient contact. But only when a judge cleared him of the allegations did his fight really begin to rid a national database of the sanction that even the medical board dismissed. But the Texas Supreme Court ruled enough was enough.
For V&E’s Tom Leatherbury, the Mantra is ‘Texas – So Many First Amendment Violations, So Little Time.’
In First Amendment decisions like the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent injunction stopping enforcement of a Texas law governing social media platforms, and other free-speech challenges for years, Vinson & Elkins senior partner Tom Leatherbury has been front and center. Leatherbury, widely regarded as a leading media and appellate lawyer in the state and who founded a media law clinic at SMU, tells The Texas Lawbook that First Amendment challenges never seem to end.
Texas Supreme Court Report
A SCOTX dispatch, including a case highlight and other causes to watch.
Fifth Circuit Panel Rebukes Houston District Court Judge Yet Again
For the third time in five years, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has rebuked a federal district court judge in Houston for denying a plaintiff discovery before summary judgment. “This is the third time we have been asked to consider whether a particular district court can deny discovery rights protected by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because, in the district court’s view, that discovery is unnecessary,” the three-judge panel declared in a per curiam opinion. “We have twice held no. Today we so hold a third time.”
Legal Luminaries Back Appeal in Grayson County Capital Case
In an amicus brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, several former Texas judges urge the court to grant certiorari in the case of a Grayson County Black man convicted by an all-white jury that included several jurors who said they disapproved of his interracial marriage.