Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In the U.S. Supreme Court term that just ended, Texas fared...well, poorly. When you lose all three cases you take before the court, there's probably no better way to characterize the outcome. But all was not lost, reports Tony Mauro, The Lawbook's Supreme Court correspondent. In his review of the October 2020 term, he found that Texas still has some clout before the court.
In 2018 the Supreme Court of Texas established a precedent requiring common law cases involving the operation of utilities, even those involving personal injury, to be reviewed by the Public Utilities Commission before reaching the courts. In three opinions filed since Friday, the court has been recalibrating that requirement. The Lawbook's Allen Pusey reviews those cases and the issues that caused the court to take a new look at its own precedent.
In a 5-4 decision the court ruled that New Jersey could not block the use of eminent domain for the interstate PennEast Pipeline. The split, however, revealed more about the court's current and diverse views on the powers of the states than a liberal versus conservative mindset.
When is a seller not a seller in Texas? When it advertises products online, takes money for them and delivers them to customers, according to the Texas Supreme Court. That opinion was delivered Friday in response to a certified question regarding Amazon.com from the U.S. Fifth Circuit. It was not a unanimous view, as The Lawbook's Allen Pusey explains.
Invoking a web archive and a social media page as evidence of "purposeful availment," the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that a Connecticut company could be sued in Texas, despite its claim that it never had any intention of doing business here.
A 6-3 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Texas-based case offers a reprieve for small refineries seeking "hardship exemptions" from increasingly strict EPA renewable fuel standards. But with a change in presidential administrations, the relief may prove short-lived. Lawbook Supreme Court correspondent Tony Mauro explains.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that some – but not all – allegations in three separate lawsuits brought against Facebook by three teenagers who say they were victims of sexual predators can move forward to trial Houston. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not provide absolute immunity to internet providers such as Facebook in civil lawsuits when their own “misdeeds” are part of the allegation, justices said.
A Houston company sued after a tragic trucking accident says that with $100 million on the line, it has a right to look jurors in the eye. Bruce Tomaso explains the viewpoints of both sides, which pit two prominent Houston trial lawyers against each other.
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