Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
From UCC output contracts to the internal affairs doctrine, the Texas Business Court’s October docket provided a clear window into how the new bench is handling high-stakes corporate disputes. Notable rulings included applying Texas' strict pre-suit demand requirements to a derivative suit against Coinbase’s directors and using the economic-loss rule to limit tort claims in commercial lease fights.
Operating since September 2024, the Texas Business Court has swiftly moved from a statutory innovation into an active, high-stakes commercial trial forum. The court's first nine completed bench and jury trials reveal a bench defined by strict contractual textualism, evidentiary discipline requiring proof of actual loss, measured remedies and rapid trial timelines.
Parties in Texas Business Court jury trials have been adding to jurors’ $58 daily pay, with total compensation ranging from $120 to $250 per day with lunch provided. A judge and a veteran trial lawyer say the extra money recognizes the hardship of jury service. It also keeps jurors from resenting litigants fighting over millions of dollars.
The 12-member jury delivered a complete defense victory for Blackbrush Oil & Gas and affiliated investors Thursday, rejecting clean-energy developer Synergy Thermogen’s $100 million-plus breach-of-contract and fraud claims in the Texas Business Court. Following a two-week trial before Judge Bill Whitehill and seven hours of deliberations, jurors found that Synergy and founder Rich Halvorson fraudulently induced the parties’ advisory agreement, ordering them to return the investors' entire $1.5 million seed investment.
After closing arguments in the Texas Business Court trial, 12 jurors now weigh the 46-page charge. Synergy accuses Blackbrush Oil & Gas of sabotaging its clean-energy technology. Blackbrush says Synergy founder Rich Halvorson squandered its $1.5 million investment.
Four of the Texas Business Court’s September opinions asked a threshold question: Can the court hear this case at all? The answers show a court leaning on its own growing body of precedent and a strictly textual reading of its jurisdiction statute. September also brought a Rule 91a fight over an expelled LLC member and a venture capitalist’s claim to a share of a multibillion-dollar sale that ran into his own release.
Opening statements began Thursday morning in a breach-of-contract jury trial between an oil and gas company and a clean-energy technology developer. Jury selection took all day Tuesday, and there were not enough jurors present to proceed Wednesday, delaying the two-week jury trial.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Texas Business Court Judge Andrea Bouressa discusses her favorite day on the bench and what has surprised her about serving. She also shares what she hopes will come next for the court as it continues to grow.
Texas Business Court Judge Bill Whitehill will preside over his first jury trial starting Tuesdaymorning with jury selection in a $100 million breach-of-contract case between two oil and gascompanies. The case, in which Synergy Thermogen is accusing Blackbrush Oil & Gas of breach of contractby using its access to the company to delay progress and defraud investors, will take place inthe Merrill Hartman Courtroom of the George Allen Courts Building in Dallas since the business court has no courtroom space of its own.
SmartDisk, a deposition video and production company that started in Houston more than 20 years ago, was vindicated by a panel of Texas Business Court jurors Tuesday afternoon when they agreed a former business partner owes the company about $6.4 million in damages for breach of an agreement.
The Texas Business Court stayed hot throughout August, issuing six opinions as the Court’s docket continued to mature with procedural and doctrinal opinions. Evident in several opinions is the familiar theme that has characterized the Court’s growing resolution of complex commercial disputes: Documents mean what they say, and parties are held to the bargains they struck.
After two years in operation, the Texas Business Court has proven to be a nimble, sophisticated venue for resolving complex business litigation. But there’s one issue that represents an “existential” threat to the continued success and growth of the court, Administrative Presiding Judge Grant Dorfman recently told The Texas Lawbook: a shortage of permanent courtrooms.
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