Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The State Bar of Texas on Thursday made public a broad range of rule changes to comply with a federal appeals court ruling in July that the bar association violated the First Amendment by imposing membership and dues on lawyers who object to certain bar activities.
From his house in the M Streets neighborhood of East Dallas, Carl Cecere has built an appellate practice that has become enviable from virtually any point of view. He can go where he wants, write what he cares about and sometimes tell the courts what he thinks they should do. His influential Twitter presence has attracted top-tier SCOTUS practitioners seeking his common sense advice and elegant briefing handiwork, and here he tells The Lawbook's Tony Mauro what he's expecting from the nation's highest court this term and its already ambitious caseload.
Energy companies that compensate employees by the day must still pay those people overtime because they are not exempt salaried workers under the strict wording of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Fifth Circuit has ruled. The appeals court decision is a huge blow to energy companies who have relied for decades on the idea that they could escape paying OT to workers paid an extra high daily wage. Dissenting judges say the decision overturns decades of standard practices within the energy sector and will have a devastating impact on the oil and gas industry. The Texas Lawbook has the full details.
Dallas Appeals Court Justice David Schenck issued an opinion late Friday apparently accusing fellow justices of intentionally delaying the public reporting of a decision by a three-judge panel in order to change the composition of the panel and possibly impact the decision. But Fifth Court Chief Justice Robert Burns said Schenck is mistaken on the facts and the law. The Texas Lawbook has details.
After seven years, a legal fight over the disinterment of famed trial lawyer John O’Quinn’s body has been put to rest in Houston’s First Court of Appeals.
In 2015, Elena Kagan famously announced: "We're all textualists now." By any reasonable measure, the Texas Supreme Court is often vehemently so. But when it comes to the "plain meaning" of statutory text, even textualists sometimes find different interpretations of the same simple words. Brandon Duke examines one recent SCOTX case — decided by plurality — that reveals the complexity that can dwell behind even the simplest words.
The Texas Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that the typical aspects of the general contractor/subcontractor relationship do not give rise to a duty of care to subcontractor employees. The JLB Builders case, however, is a timely reminder that general contractors who exercise too much control over the manner and means of its subcontractors’ work may find itself on the hook for injury claims brought by subcontractor employees. Cornelius Sweers of Porter Hedges considers the ramifications of the decision.
The blockbuster July 2 ruling that the State Bar of Texas violated the First Amendment rights of some of its members by using mandatory dues to support politically controversial efforts unrelated to the regulation of the legal profession has lawyers wondering whether and when the U.S. Supreme Court might take up the case. But some worry SCOTUS could make it even worse for the bar association. The Texas Lawbook has details.
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.
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