The Texas Supreme Court issued one opinion this morning, explaining Texas law as it applies to inverse condemnation claims based on a state action that allegedly impairs a property owner’s access to his or her property. In this case, the Supreme Court held that since the property owner was entitled to an easement from the state to allow access to a public roadway, no impairment of access had occurred which would have given rise to a condemn

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In 1993, an Argentine company, Bridas, entered in to a joint venture with the government of Turkmenistan, which was recently liberated from the Soviet Union. The venture went south when the government of Turkmenistan demanded a higher royalty percentage than provided by the Joint Venture Agreement. When Bridas refused to capitulate, Turkmenistan simply banned Bridas from the country. A joint venture with a government of an unstable and new countr

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On Friday, the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in an accelerated appeal of a trial court’s denial of a special appearance, finding that the appellants in question did not have, in their individual capacities, sufficient contacts with the State of Texas to be subject to a Travis County District Court’s personal jurisdiction. The case involved a California corporation’s breach of a commercial lease of some Austin office s

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This past Friday, the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a post-divorce fraud case which sets forth a nice statement of the law on collateral attacks in Texas. In 1993, a Timothy Chambers and his father created a Texas partnership to develop a piece of real estate. They hired attorneys to draft the paperwork, which established that Mr. Chambers’ interest was to be his separate property, a gift from his parents. In 1997, Mr. Chamber

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