This morning, in addition to the arbitration case we’ve already discussed, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion in a judicial disqualification case, to which Justice Hecht dissented. As the court succinctly summarizes its holding: the question presented here is whether an appellate judge is disqualified because, unbeknownst to her, before she took the bench another attorney at her very large firm played a very small role in the early s

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Last Friday, the Texas Supreme Court issued two opinions, neither of which has anything to do with the law of arbitration. The first opinion discusses whether or not a city can be estopped from enforcing a zoning ordinance when its building official, unaware of the ordinance, mistakenly issued a permit which would have allowed construction in violation of the ordinance. In this case, and in all but “exceptional” cases according to the

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As avid readers of this blog will note, a few weeks back we commented on an opinion from the Texas Supreme Court compelling arbitration in a defamation case against Dillards by a former employee. We speculated (and continue to speculate) that the Court may have indicated that an arbitration agreement which allowed for unilateral modification could be considered illusory, based on the following language: The arbitration agreement and the 2000 rule

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The Texas Supreme Court ruled this morning that Texans did not acquire the right to privately invoke the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) until the Texas Legislature amended the Business & Commerce Code to allow Texas court to hear private suits based on the TCPA on September 1, 1999. The TCPA, which was passed in 1991, allowed individuals to sue companies that send unsolicited facsimile advertisements “if

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This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued a mandamus opinion in an arbitration case holding that a fired worker’s defamation claim against her erstwhile employer was subject to an arbitration agreement, which required arbitration of personal injury claims. According to the Court, since the agreement was susceptible to two reasonable interpretations, one holding that defamation is a personal injury and one holding that it is not, arbitrat

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The Texas Supreme Court issued two per curiam opinions this morning. The first invoked Rule 47.1 of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure and remanded a case back to the 11th Court of Appeals. The Court found that the Court of Appeals’ opinion “failed to identify and expressly consider modification and waiver as distinct issues associated with the relief the parties requested from the arbitrator” and remanded the case for furth

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The Texas Supreme Court issued its latest school financing opinion today. Justice Hecht wrote for the majority while Justice Brister dissented. Technorati Tags: litigation, Texas Supreme Court, law

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This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued two opinions. One explains the application of the voluntary payment rule in Texas, and the other explains the procedure by which one can appeal a small claims court judgment in Texas. Both probably warrant additional discussion on this blog, but we probably will not be able to get to it today. However, I wanted to alert readers to the opinions, in the event that someone has a case pending in which the

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By Rick Freeman In a recent article herein, Karl and Rob discussed the recent opinion by the Texas Supreme Court – In re Weekley Homes, L.P. In that decision the Texas Supreme Court compelled a non-signatory to a contract to submit her personal injury claim to arbitration pursuant to the home purchase contract. Basically, the Court says that if you gain benefits from the contract, you are subject to the contract’s arbitration clause. To quo

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The Texas Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion this morning reversing the Fourteenth Court of Appeals and a trial court, both of which had previously denied a special appearance in a suit involving the alleged wrongful denial of insurance claims. The Court held that the district court could not properly exercise specific personal jurisdiction over Commonwealth General Corporation (“CNC”) just because CNC was the sole shareholder

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