Justia Texas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Middle school and high school cheerleaders, through their parents, sued Kountze Independent School District after the District prohibited them from displaying banners at school-sponsored events containing religious messages or signs. The District filed a plea to the jurisdiction, asserting mootness in light of its subsequent adoption of a resolution providing that the District was not required to prohibit religious messages on school banners. The trial court denied the District’s plea. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that Plaintiffs’ claims for declaratory and injunctive relief were moot because the District voluntarily discontinued its prohibition on the display of banners containing religious messages or signs. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that because the resolution only states that the District is not required to prohibit the cheerleaders from displaying religious messages on school banners and reserves to the District discretion in regulating those banners, this case was not moot, as the challenged conduct might reasonably be expected to recur. Remanded. View "Matthews v. Kountze Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Certain provisions of the Texas Occupations Code and Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation rules promulgated pursuant to that Code require eyebrow threaders to undergo 750 hours of training in order to obtain a license before practicing commercial threading. Plaintiffs, several individuals practicing commercial eyebrow threading and the salon owners employing them, filed this declaratory judgment action asserting that, as applied to them, Texas’s licensing statutes and regulations violate the state Constitution’s due course of law provision. Specifically, Plaintiffs alleged that the number of hours required for a license to practice commercial eyebrow threading are not related to health or safety or to what threaders actually do. The trial court granted summary judgment for the State. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the large number of required hours that are not arguably related to the actual practice of threading, the associated costs of those hours, and the delayed employment opportunities while taking the hours make the licensing requirements as a whole reach the level of being so burdensome that they are oppressive in light of the governmental interest. View "Patel v. Dep’t of Licensing & Regulation" on Justia Law

Respondents, a same-sex couple who were married in Massachusetts, sought a divorce in Texas. The two women settled their differences, and the trial court orally granted an ostensible divorce pursuant to the parties’ agreement. The State filed a petition in intervention seeking to oppose the petition for divorce and to defend the constitutionality of Texas law that limits divorce actions to persons of the opposite sex who are married to one another. The State argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to render a divorce. The trial court ultimately decided not to entertain the State’s petition, concluding that the attempted intervention was untimely. The court of appeals dismissed the State’s appeal for want of jurisdiction, also ruling that the intervention was untimely. The State sought the Supreme Court’s review, asking the Court to allow the intervention and to vacate the divorce. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals and denied the State’s petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the State failed to secure standing by properly presenting its arguments to the trial court and court of appeals, and consequently, the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to reach those issues. View "State v. Naylor" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs in this case were more than 400 residents and homeowners in the upper White Oak Bayou watershed in Harris County. From 1998 to 2002, most of Plaintiffs’ homes were inundated in three successive floods. Plaintiffs filed an inverse condemnation suit against several government entities, arguing that Defendants knew that harm was substantially certain to result to Plaintiffs’ homes when Defendants approved private development in the White Oak Bayou watershed without mitigating its consequences. Defendants responded with a combined plea to the jurisdiction and motion for summary judgment, contending that no genuine issue of material fact had been raised on the elements of the takings claim. The trial court denied the motion. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of the plea to the jurisdiction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a fact question existed as to each element of Plaintiffs’ takings claim, and therefore, the government entities’ plea to the jurisdiction was properly denied. View "Harris County Flood Control Dist. v. Kerr" on Justia Law

Respondent, a former employee of San Antonio Water System (SAWS), sued SAWS under the Texas Commission on Human Rights (TCHRA), alleging that SAWS retaliated against her for opposing a discriminatory employment practice. Specifically, Respondent contended that she was terminated because she confronted a male vice president about his repeated lunch invitations to two female employees outside his department. The jury awarded Respondent nearly $1 million in damages. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed the claim, holding that no reasonable person could have believed that sexual harassment under the TCHRA occurred, and therefore, Respondent did not engage in a protected activity under the TCHRA when she confronted the vice president. View "San Antonio Water Sys. v. Nichols" on Justia Law

In this commercial dispute, Petitioner obtained a $6 million breach-of-contract and tort judgment against Respondents. After filing the lawsuit, Petitioner assigned its claims to its commercial lender. Respondents filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, alleging that Petitioner had no standing to pursue the litigation because it had assigned the claims to the lender. The trial court concluded that Petitioner had standing. The court of appeals vacated the judgment and dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the court of appeals failed to consider pertinent evidence before the trial court, and therefore, the cause must be remanded to the trial court for reconsideration. View "Vernco Constr., Inc. v. Nelson" on Justia Law

The State condemned two adjacent parcels of property that the owners had leased to Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. for outdoor advertising. Clear Channel had built a billboard on each parcel. The State maintained that its condemnation of the realty did not include the billboards themselves because they were removable property for which no compensation was due. Consistent with the State’s position, the special commissioners’ awards included no compensation for the billboard structures. The landowners and Clear Channel objected to the awards. In addition, Clear Channel counterclaimed for inverse condemnation of the sign structures. After a jury trial, the trial court awarded Clear Channel $268,235.27 for the billboards less credits for the amounts already received from the commissioners’ award, concluding that a billboard may be a fixture to be valued with the land. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) Clear Channel’s billboard structures were fixtures and should have been valued as part of the land; and (2) while Clear Channel was due compensation for the sign structures, it was not entitled to value the structures based on the income from its advertising operations, and evidence of that income was inadmissible. Remanded. View "State v. Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc." on Justia Law

After an investigation, the City of Houston declared the Park Memorial condominiums uninhabitable. Because the condominium owners did not apply for an occupancy certificate or make necessary repairs within the requisite period of time, the City ordered all residents to vacate the complex. A group of owners later brought this inverse-condemnation action, alleging that their property was taken when they were forced to vacate. The trial court sustained the City’s plea to the jurisdiction, concluding that the owners had not alleged a taking. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the condominium owners’ claim failed because they did not allege a taking. View "City of Houston v. Carlson" on Justia Law

In 2003, the Legislature enacted the Medical Liability Act, which contains a statute of repose that operates as a bar to claims that are not brought within ten years of the date of the medical treatment. In this case, alleged negligence occurred during the birth of a child in 1996. No suit was filed until 2011, five years after the repose statute’s deadline. The hospital moved for summary judgment, asserting that the repose statute barred the claim. The mother responded that the Act’s ten-year statute of repose violates the open court and retroactivity provisions of the Texas Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld the Act’s repose statute against the mother’s as-applied constitutional challenges, holding (1) the mother’s open courts challenge failed due to the mother’s lack of diligence in filing suit; and (2) the mother’s retroactivity challenge failed because a compelling public purpose justified the legislation and granted the mother a three-year grace period to file suit. View "Tenet Hosps. Ltd. v. Rivera" on Justia Law

A trial court may substitute a regular juror with an alternate if the regular juror is unable to fulfill or is disqualified from fulfilling his duties. A trial court may only dismiss a juror and proceed with fewer than twelve jurors if the dismissed juror is constitutionally disabled. In this child custody dispute, the trial court empaneled twelve jurors and retained one alternate. The trial court subsequently substituted the alternate juror for a regular juror whom it found to be disqualified. During the trial, the trial court found that one of the jurors had become disabled and proceeded with eleven jurors. The eleven-member jury returned a unanimous verdict. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that dismissal of the disqualified juror resulted in an eleven-member jury in violation of the constitutional right to a jury trial. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the court of appeals failed to property examine the two dismissals under their appropriate standards. Remanded. View "In re Interest of M.G.N." on Justia Law