Justia Texas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

This case stemmed from a commercial bus driver's diagnosis of tuberculosis and subsequent transmission of the disease to passengers. At issue was whether the transmission of a communicable disease from the driver of a motor vehicle to a passenger was a covered loss under a business auto policy, which afforded coverage for accidental bodily injuries resulting from the vehicle's use. The court held that because communicable diseases were not an insured risk under the policy at issue, the court reversed the judgment and rendered judgment for the insurance carrier. View "Lancer Ins. Co. v. Holiday Tours, et al." on Justia Law

1/2 Price Checks Cashed (Half-Price) brought a suit in a Dallas County justice court asserting breach of contract on the basis of the obligation owed by the drawer of a check under Tex. Bus. & Com. 3.414 and requested attorney's fees. At issue was whether a holder of a dishonored check could recover attorney's fees under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 38.001(8) in an action against a check's drawer under section 3.414. The court held that Half-Price's section 3.414 claim was a suit on a contract to which section 38.001(a) applied and applying section 38.001(8) to the claim did not disrupt Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code's statutory scheme. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment and remanded for a determination of attorney's fees. View "1/2 Price Checks Cashed v. United Automobile Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Petitioner filed suit against respondent for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Respondent had been employed by petitioner since 1983 and rose to become a managing director. In 2005, respondent signed a Non-Solicitation Agreement and notice form stating that he wanted to exercise a stock option to acquire 3000 shares of stock of petitioner's parent company. At issue was whether a covenant not to compete signed by a valued employee in consideration for stock options, designed to give the employee a greater stake in the company's performance, was unenforceable as a matter of law because the stock options did not give rise to an interest in restraining competition. The court held that, under the terms of the Covenants Not to Compete Act (Act), Tex. Bus. & Com. Code 15.50, 52, the consideration for the noncompete agreement (stock options) was reasonably related to the company's interest in protecting its goodwill, a business interest the Act recognized as worthy of protection. Therefore, the noncompete was not unenforceable on that basis. Accordingly, the court reversed the court of appeal's judgment and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Marsh USA Inc., et al. v. Cook" on Justia Law

LTTS Charter School ("LTTS") was an open-enrollment school that retained C2 Construction, Inc. ("C2") to build school facilities at a site Universal Academy had leased. C2 filed a breach of contract suit and Universal Academy filed a plea to the jurisdiction claiming immunity from suit. The trial court denied the plea and Universal Academy brought an interlocutory appeal under Section 51.014(a)(8) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. In the court of appeals, C2 moved to dismiss the interlocutory appeal, arguing that Universal Academy was note entitled to one because it was not a governmental unit under the Torts Claims Act ("Act"), Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 101.001(3)(D). At issue was whether an open-enrollment charter school was a governmental unit as defined by Section 101.001(3)(D) and thus, able to take an interlocutory appeal from a trial court's denial of its plea to the jurisdiction. The court held that open-enrollment charter schools were governmental units for the Act purposes because the Act defined government unit broadly to include any other institution, agency, or organ of government derived from state law; the Education Code defined open-enrollment charters schools as part of the public school system, which were created in accordance with the laws of the state, subject to state laws and rules governing public schools and, together with governmental traditional public schools, have the primary responsibility for implementing the state's system of public education; and the Legislature considered open-enrollment charter schools to be governmental entities under a host of other laws outside the Education Code. Accordingly, because Universal Academy was a governmental unit under the Act, the court of appeals had jurisdiction to hear its interlocutory appeal under Section 51.014(a)(8). View "LTTS Charter School, Inc. v. C2 Construction, Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner sued respondent after her son accidently set fire to her six-year-old daughter's dress with a J-26 model BIC lighter, alleging that the daughter's injuries were the result of manufacturing and design defects in the lighter. At issue was whether the design defect claim was preempted by federal law and the evidence was sufficient to support the finding that a design defect in the lighter was a producing cause of the fire that burned the daughter. The court held that the manufacturing defect claim was not preempted by federal law because the court of appeals found an alternative ground for liability, and the court need not determine whether a claim based solely on respondent's failure to comply with its internal specifications would be preempted. The court also held that petitioner presented legally sufficient evidence that the lighter did not meet manufacturing specifications but failed to prove that the deviation was a producing cause of the daughter's injuries. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and rendered judgment for respondent. View "BIC Pen Corp. v. Carter" on Justia Law

Marcos Guerra was buried at Mont Meta Memorial Park cemetery in a plot that had been sold to someone else. When his family refused the cemetery's request that it be allowed to move the body to another burial plot, the cemetery did so anyway. Guerra's family members subsequently sued defendants, the corporation that owned and operated the cemetery and its parent corporation. At issue was whether the evidence was sufficient to support jury findings that defendants were liable for actions of the cemetery's employees and whether plaintiffs suffered compensable mental anguish because Guerra's body was disinterred and moved to another grave without permission. Also at issue was whether evidence of other lawsuits against defendants was properly admitted. The court held that there was legally insufficient evidence to support either the liability findings or mental anguish findings. The court also held that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of other lawsuits, verdicts, and judgments and that such evidence was harmful and required the case to be remanded for a new trial. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals, rendered judgment in part, and remanded for a new trial in part. View "Service Corp. Int'l, et al. v. Guerra" on Justia Law

This action arose out of condemnation proceedings initiated by the State after the landowners and the State could not agree on the amount of compensation for a .33 acres out of a 3.5 acre tract of land fronting U.S. Highway 290 in Travis County. At issue was whether the trial court erred by only charging the jury to find the pre-taking value of the tract when there was evidence the taking did not cause damage to the remainder and whether there was any evidence the remainder suffered compensable damages. The court concluded that the trial court committed charge error by inquiring whether the landowner suffered damages to the remainder. The court also held that there was no evidence the taking caused compensable damages to the remainder and based on the jury findings, the value of the tract taken could be determined. Accordingly, the court reversed the court of appeals judgment and remanded to the trial court for rendition of judgment. View "State v. Petropoulos" on Justia Law

Petitioners and respondent agreed to submit their claims to arbitration but could not agree on an arbitrator. Because of this disagreement, the trial judge intervened and appointed an arbitrator to preside over their dispute. At issue was whether the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 51.016 of an interlocutory appeal of an order appointing an arbitrator. Also at issue was whether, in the alternative, petitioners should be granted mandamus relief to prevent form from overriding substance. The court held that the court of appeals correctly determined that it was without jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal pursuant to section 51.016. The court also instructed the court of appeals to consider this appeal as a petition for writ of mandamus because petitioners specifically requested mandamus relief in the court of appeals and preserved that issue in this court and because judicial efficiency militated against requesting petitioners to file a separate original proceeding.

Relator was held in contempt of court and confined for perjuring himself during a deposition. At issue was whether a trial court could hold a litigant in contempt for perjury committed during a deposition and whether the court should exercise mandamus jurisdiction to provide a forum for a civil litigant who was deprived of liberty pursuant to a court's contempt order, and the Court of Criminal Appeals had declined to exercise its habeas jurisdiction. The court held that the trial court abused its discretion where such perjury did not obstruct the operation of the court. The court also held that relator had no adequate remedy by appeal where the underlying suit was civil in nature and the Court of Appeals declined to grant relator leave to file a habeas petition in that court. Accordingly, mandamus was the appropriate remedy to correct the trial court's abuse of discretion and the court conditionally granted relief.

Appellant, an African-American resident of Texas, sued appellees alleging that their credit-scoring systems employed several undisclosed factors which resulted in disparate impacts for minorities and violated the federal Fair Housing Act ("FHA"), 42 U.S.C. 3601, 3619. At issue, in a certified question, was whether Texas law permitted an insurance company to price insurance by using a credit-score factor that had a racially disparate impact that, were it not for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1012(b), would violate the FHA, absent a legally sufficient nondiscriminatory reason, or would using such a credit-score factor violate Texas Insurance Code ("Code") sections 544.002(a), 559.051, 559.052, or some other provision of Texas law. The court answered the certified question by holding that Texas law did not prohibit an insurer from using race-neutral factors in credit-scoring to price insurance, even if doing so created a racially disparate impact.