Embarrassingly, the always excellent Florida Arbitration Law blog has scooped us on a Texas state appellate court decision on arbitrability. Instead of recapping their summary of the Beaumont opinion on whether or not participation in litigation discovery waives a potential right to compel arbitration, we’ll just give you a link and direct you to their commentary. The Beaumont Court, by the way, in part bases its decision on the Texas Supre

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On December 22, 2006, the Supreme Court came down with the opinion quoted below. The opinion is significant in two important respects: 1. The opinion demonstrates the Supreme Court holding exemplary damages “constitutionally excessive” even though the exemplary damages are within the Chapter 41 limit of $200,000.00. Therefore, this is a case where the constitutionally excessive defensive pleadings came into play. The court holds that

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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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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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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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Well, this morning’s Texas law explosion is explained in large part by a tremendously important sovereign immunity opinion the Texas Supreme Court handed down. The opinion reverses a 1970 Texas Supreme Court and holds that the “sue and be sued” language that shows up all the time in City charters and statutes and the like may not in fact be construed as a waiver of sovereign immunity from suit. The opinion also notes that the Le

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