Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The U.S. Fifth Circuit has dismissed a lawsuit filed in East Texas against Schiff Hardin charging that the firm had misrepresented facts to an insurance company during its defense of a products liability lawsuit. Most of the claims had already been dismissed, but the appeals court said the trial judge erred in a novel interpretation of Texas case law.
The Eleventh Court of Appeals ended 2018 by tossing $43.1 million of a nearly $50 million West Texas jury award, ruling that a group of West Texas oil and gas investors who called themselves "partners" had no partnership at all. Allen Pusey explains.
In yet another show of support for mandatory arbitration, the Texas Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that a duly assigned arbitrator has the power to decide a dispute, even when it involves conflicting court orders. The Lawbook's Janet Elliott explains.
Newly-elected judges on the Texas courts of appeals may soon revisit a firmly rooted – albeit faded – distinction between factual and legal sufficiency as they grapples with their differences with pro-business justices on the Texas Supreme Court. Specifically, courts of appeals may be able to limit state Supreme Court review by deciding cases based on factual sufficiency of the evidence. The Texas Lawbook has details.
When Houston Astros owner Jim Crane and another investor bought a new aircraft for $19.85 million in 2010, they apparently expected it to be...well, new. When they discovered two years later it had been equipped with a used left engine with a troubled history, they sued. Now the SCOTX is weighing whether the evidence supports their $8M verdict.
Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis said “questions of jurisdiction are questions of power." That observation provides a useful lens to examine how three sentences from recent opinions by the Dallas Court of Appeals involve questions of power, and how they may illustrate areas where the newly-constituted Texas appellate courts may take new approaches.
The unprecedented election last week of 20 Democratic candidates to the state courts of appeals in Austin, Dallas and Houston will have an almost immediate and substantive impact on civil litigation and issues such as enforcement of arbitration clauses, excessive use of Anti-SLAPP laws and deference to juries in large-dollar plaintiff’s verdicts.
Texas Supreme Court Justice Phil Johnson, a conservative voice on the court for the past 13 years, has announced that he is retiring at the end of the year. Mark Curriden has the details.
Democratic candidates for appellate judgeships in Texas scored historic victories in Tuesday’s election. Every Democrat running for the judgeships on the First, Third, Fifth and Fourteenth courts of appeals won. The Texas Lawbook has the details.
Amid a flurry of amicus briefs from property rights advocates, business groups and municipal planners, the Texas Supreme Court heard arguments last week in an eminent domain dispute from Rowlett. The case is a test of a Texas statute designed to protect private property rights following Kelo v. City of New London.
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