In orders issued Friday morning, the Texas Supreme Court granted a request from Houston Baseball Partners to drop its claims against Comcast and NBC. That means the case now pits current owner Jim Crane against the man who sold him the team, Drayton McLane.
Check That Off My Bucket List: SMU Dedman Law Alumni at SCOTUS
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.
Night of the Living Lochner: Did the Constitution End Economics in 1791?
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.
Long-running Legal Malpractice Suit Again Revived
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.
SCOTX Wrestles with Force Majeure Clause in Drilling Delay
The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could lay out the rules for deciding how to read a drilling lease’s force majeure clause. The case involves a driller’s response to unforeseen circumstances and its miscalculation of a deadline.
Texas Justices to Decide if $332M Astros Sale Spat Goes to Trial
The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether Jim Crane can proceed with his lawsuit over the allegedly inflated price he paid for the stake in a regional sports network. Two lower courts have denied bids by the team’s former owner and Comcast to end the lawsuit. Michelle Casady tuned into oral arguments Tuesday as the Houston Astros prepare for Game 1 of the World Series.
Behind the Scenes: How a Pair of Texas Friends Prepped for a SCOTUS Argument
Ed Sullivan and Sam Kaplan (pictured center) have been friends for 30 years, beginning when they met at the University of Texas as undergraduates. Later they both decided to become lawyers.
Their friendship continued but never as intensely as it did this year, while working together on a case that would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, argued Oct. 12, was Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, a dispute about whether highly paid employees are eligible for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It is an important issue for the oil and gas industry. The case was brought by Michael Hewitt, a “tool-pusher” on an offshore oil rig. Other amicus briefs indicated that the outcome of the case could affect a range of organizations including nursing.
Pathbreaking Journalist, Remarkable Human Being, ‘Jeopardy’ Clue: ‘Who is Tony Mauro?’
For more than four decades, Tony Mauro has been a reporter with the U.S. Supreme Court as his beat. He’s covered 22 justices — from William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O’Connor to John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson. He was there in 1986 when the Supreme Court upheld laws criminalizing sodomy and in 2003 when the justices, in Lawrence v. Texas ruled such laws unconstitutional. Mauro revolutionized how journalists wrote about the Supreme Court, holding the justices accountable for the gender and ethnicity of their clerks and doing his best to bring transparency to a branch of government that long-cherished its anonymity. Mauro, who has been a correspondent for The Texas Lawbook since 2020, has some great stories to tell. But he is a great story himself.