The Texas Supreme Court has in the past year or two emphasized that non-signatories to arbitration agreements can still be required to arbitrate certain disputes. (see prior blog posts here, here, and here). This morning, the Court analyzed circumstances in which a non-signatory can actually compel arbitration pursuant to a contract to which the non-signatory was, of course, not a party. The majority opinion, written by Justice Hecht, continues t

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This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion in a case which concludes that a guardian ad litem’s fee was unreasonable and remands to the trial court the issue of the reasonableness of the fee. The case discusses the applicable standard for evaluating an ad litem’s fee and is an important one for anyone who litigates cases in which settlements are made on behalf of minor children. The underlying case stemmed from

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This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued opinions in eleven cases. None has to do with Texas arbitration law. Two have to do with premises liability actions, one of which seems to be an important case based on a quick skimming. We will blog on it in detail as time permits, hopefully later today. For the rest, however, we will offer the following brief summary: Brookshire v. Taylor. This is the seemingly important premises liability case. The

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The Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion on interlocutory appeal this morning affirming a trial court’s denial of a plea to the jurisdiction filed by the Austin Independent School District. The opinion clearly states that an AISD employee’s claim against the district for violation of the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (the “Act”) is NOT a claim that the employee has been aggrieved by the school laws of the state,

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According to the Texas Secretary of State, our good friend, colleague, office-mate and frequent co-counsel Diane Henson has won her election to the Third Court of Appeals. We look forward to blogging about her opinions, which will invariably be well-written, thorough and absolutely devoid of typos. While we selfishly hate to lose her, we can say without question that her election is good for Texas. Also, if the judicial results reported by the Au

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More than a year ago now, guest blogger Rick Freeman wrote about an arbitration decision out of San Antonio where a trial court refused to compel arbitration on the basis that the high cost of arbitration made the agreement to arbitrate unconscionable. This morning, the Texas Supreme Court denied the petition for review in that case, leaving the San Antonio opinion good law, for now at least. What does this mean for state of cost-based unconscion

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Perhaps less likely to come up than the situation in this morning’s other Texas Supreme Court opinion, the Court also addressed the scope of Texas’ antitrust statute (the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983) this morning. The Coca-Cola Company v. Harmar Bottling Company, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. 2006) (Cause No. 03-0737).

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As an initial matter, we would like to apologize for our absence for the last month and a half. From time to time the actual practice of law interferes with the blogging. We’ve been extremely busy for the last month or so, which is good, but which also prevented us from blogging. For a variety of reasons, however, things are more or less back to normal now. Which is a good thing, because this morning the Texas Supreme Court released two opi

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This morning, the Third Court of Appeals, sitting en banc on a Motion for Rehearing, issued an opinion holding that certain language in the Texas tax code which uses the word “may” is in fact mandatory, such that a successful Texas property tax protestant has an entitlement to his, her or its attorneys’ fees in making the protest. The opinion, which replaces an older opinion blogged about quite briefly here, addresses a split am

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Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion stemming from a Mississippi case (link is to .pdf file) weighing in on the notion that prohibitive expense of arbitration can be a basis for a court’s refusal to compel arbitration on unconscionability grounds. The Court reversed the district court refusal to compel arbitration in this case, finding that the party seeking to avoid arbitration (a chicken farmer named Gertrude Overstreet) pr

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