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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The Third Court of Appeals issued an interesting memorandum opinion this morning affirming a trial court’s default judgment in a case where a registered agent refused to accept service of process in a premises case. In the underlying case, the plaintiff hired two separate process servers who tried unsuccessfully to serve a restaurant’s registered agent, both personally and via certified mail (the certified mailings were returned marke

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On Thursday, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion in a complicated case (link is to .pdf of opinion) which implicates, in part, the Federal Arbitration Act, to the extent it codifies the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (we blogged on the New York Convention and its roots back in June). In any event, while Thursday’s case is not really about arbitration, an international arbitration is at

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Robert Scoble (self-decribed as a “Tech Geek Blogger”) is one of my absolute favorite bloggers on technical subjects. He’s a recently-former Microsoft employee who blogs about technical and business issues surrounding the internet and blogs and the phenomena folks call Web 2.0 and the like. He also writes well and, at times, beautifully and powerfully. At any rate, his blog is one we read all the time. At any rate, Mr. Scoble ma

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The Third Court of Appeals has released an opinion on an interlocutory appeal which clearly sets forth the rule that in enacting the Whistleblower Act the Texas Legislature waived immunity from both suit and liability, and that a governmental entity is not entitled as a matter of right to an evidentiary hearing on a plea to the jurisdiction on sovereign immunity grounds. First, some quick background. The Texas Supreme Court has held that sovereig

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We don’t do family law, at least as advocates, so this blog typically does not address opinions in family law cases, but this morning the Third Court of Appeals handed down an opinion that seems worth mentioning, as the Court took the time to mention the deference that is to be given to mediated settlement agreements, and unusual dispute resolution mechanisms that may be embodied therein. The case stems from a 1998 mediated divorce. The dec

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