Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The German car manufacturers had argued that Gov. Greg Abbott shouldn’t be allowed to hand-pick two justices from lower courts to replace the two Texas Supreme Court justices who recused themselves from deciding the lawsuit Texas is bringing against them.
Eleven SMU Dedman School of Law alumni and the school’s new dean were sworn in before the nation's high court in a live ceremony before all nine justices this month. The group also heard oral arguments in two related administrative law cases.
"It was like being on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl. But better," Amy Osteen, a 2000 graduate of the law school, said.
In 1985’s classic film, The Return of the Living Dead, a rainstorm spreads a zombie-creating chemical throughout a city. In 2022, the Supreme Court’s relentless focus on originalism has also awakened long-dead legal doctrines. One such resurrection appears in the concurrence from Golden Glow Tanning Salon v. City of Columbus, which advocates examination of a constitutional “right to earn a living” in light of how such economic matters were understood in the late 1700s.
"As veterans and advocates for access to justice, it is our responsibility to advocate for civil aid legal services that are transformative in alleviating pain points felt by Texas veterans returning to civilian life after active duty, as well as those who served our country decades ago," Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela write. They lay out their case in this op-ed.
In yet another example of the massive complex litigation stemming from 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is being asked to balance the usually broad authority of federal bankruptcy judges in restructuring cases against the potential sovereignty of Texas energy regulators to set rates. Canadian energy retailer Just Energy and the ERCOT squared off Tuesday before a three-judge panel in a dispute over whether a Houston bankruptcy judge can order ERCOT to repay Just Energy up to $335 million from payments made following the February 2021 storm.
The three Republican incumbent justices on the Texas Supreme Court easily won re-election Tuesday, but the district courts of appeals seem to have provided mixed results for the two political parties. Republican candidates for the Houston courts of appeals appear to be cruising to victory, as do Democratic appellate candidates in Dallas and Austin. The voters in San Antonio split their votes. And incumbent Texas Supreme Court Justice Rebeca Huddle received more votes than any other candidate statewide.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas reaches a tentative settlement with Colorado and New Mexico in a nearly decade-old lawsuit over use of the Lower Rio Grande River’s resources, two major tobacco companies say Texas owes them about $8.6 million in taxes paid under protest, and another trial between VLSI and Intel kicks off.
The Fourth Court of Appeals said the case should not have been dismissed last year for want of prosecution at a time when civil jury trials were not available in Kerr County. The case involves Utopia lawyer Patricia Skelton’s claim against her criminal defense lawyer, which previously survived a dismissal when the Texas Supreme Court allowed Skelton to prove her innocence in the malpractice case.
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