Justia Texas Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

“In Texas, the general rule…is that an injured party cannot sue the tortfeasor’s insurer directly until the tortfeasor’s liability has been finally determined by agreement or judgment.” Plaintiff sued San Diego Tortilla (SDT) for personal injuries after he lost his hand operating a tortilla machine. Plaintiff then added a declaratory judgment claim against SDT’s liability insurer, Essex Insurance Company, seeking a declaration that Essex must indemnify SDT for its liability to Plaintiff. Essex filed motions to dismiss Plaintiff’s claims, arguing that the “no direct action” rule barred Plaintiff from suing Essex until SDT’s liability to Plaintiff was determined. The trial court denied the motions, and the court of appeals denied Essex’s petition for writ of mandamus. The Supreme Court conditionally granted mandamus and directed the trial court to grant Essex’s motions to dismiss, holding that no exception to the “no direct action” rule applied in this case. View "In re Essex Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Teresa Corral-Lerma sued Border Demolition and Environmental, Inc. under the Texas Theft Liability Act. Border Demolition counterclaimed for attorney’s fees under the same Act. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Border Demolition and awarded $78,001 in attorney’s fees in attorney’s fees through trial and conditional fees for appeal, as well as court costs. In lieu of a supersedeas bond, Corral-Lerma deposited an amount equal to the court costs awarded. The trial court ruled that the attorney’s fees were properly excluded from the security amount because they are not an award of “compensatory damages” under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 52.006. The court of appeals disagreed and granted Border Demolition’s motion to increase the amount of security required to supersede the judgment against Corral-Lerma pending appeal. The Supreme Court conditionally granted mandamus relief and directed the court of appeals to withdraw its order, holding that, in accordance with In re Nalle Plastics Family Ltd. P’ship, attorney’s fees are not compensatory damages for purposes of calculating the security amount necessary to supersede a judgment during appeal. View "In re Corral-Lerma" on Justia Law

Petitioner had a one-year contract to serve as the head women’s basketball coach and a professor with Trinity Valley Community College (TVCC), a local governmental entity. Five months into the contract, TVCC fired Petitioner. Petitioner sued for breach of contract. The trial court dismissed the case, concluding that TVCC was immune from suit. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the Local Government Contract Claims Act, which waives a local governmental entity’s immunity from suit for breach of a services contract, does not waive immunity from suit for breach of employment contracts. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Act covers government employment contracts generally, and therefore, TVCC’s immunity from suit had been waived for Petitioner’s breach-of-contract claim. View "Damuth v. Trinity Valley Cmty. College" on Justia Law

Mary Erving filed suit against National Lloyds Insurance Company, alleging that National Lloyds had underpaid her insurance claims. During discovery, Erving requested production of all claims from the previous six years involving three individual adjusters along with claim files from the past year for properties involving two adjusting firms that handled her claims. National Lloyds objected to the requests as overbroad and unduly burdensome, after which Erving moved to compel production. The trial court ordered production of the majority of the files. National Lloyds unsuccessfully filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the court of appeals and, thereafter, sought mandamus relief in the Supreme Court. The Court conditionally granted mandamus relief and directed the trial court to vacate its discovery order, holding that because the information Erving sought was not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, the trial court’s order compelling discovery of such information was overbroad. View "In re Nat’l Lloyds Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Ezequiel Castillo and other occupants of his Ford Explorer sued Ford Motor Company for injuries sustained in a roll-over accident, asserting design defects in the Explorer. During the jury’s deliberations, Ford Motor Company agreed to settle the case with one of Castillo’s attorneys for $3 million. Later, in its defense to the settlement, Ford asserted fraudulent inducement, unilateral mistake, and mutual mistake. After hearing all of the evidence, the jury found the settlement agreement invalid due to fraudulent inducement and mutual mistake. The trial court rendered a take-nothing judgment. Castillo appealed. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the jury’s verdict. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury’s verdict. View "Ford Motor Co. v. Castillo" on Justia Law

Husband filed for divorce from Wife in 2009. The first recital in the divorce decree indicated that the hearing resulting in the judgment occurred in November 2011 and that Wife attended the hearing. Another recital in the divorce decree, however, indicated that the final hearing, at which Wife did not appear, occurred in September 2011. Wife filed for a restricted appeal, claiming that she did not appear at the hearing that resulted in the divorce decree. The court of appeals dismissed the restricted appeal, concluding that Wife appeared at a hearing in November 2011, and therefore, her restricted appeal was foreclosed for want of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the record conclusively supported the recital that the final hearing resulting in the divorce decree occurred in September 2011, and neither Wife nor her attorney participated in the hearing; and (2) therefore, the court of appeals erred in concluding it had no jurisdiction over Wife’s restricted appeal. Remanded. View "Pike-Grant v. Grant" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a construction corporation, contracted to construct a wharf for Respondent, the Port of Houston Authority of Harris County, Texas. After the construction was to be completed, Petitioner sued, claiming damages from delays caused by the Port. The Port, in turn, claimed that a no-damages-for-delay provision in the construction contract between the parties precluded delay damages. Petitioner also sought recovery of $2.36 million in delay damages withheld by the Port for Petitioner’s failure to meet deadlines. After a trial, the jury found that the Port had breached the contract for deliberately and wrongfully interfering with Petitioner’s work, causing Petitioner to incur $18,602,697 in delay damages. The jury also found Petitioner had not released its claim to the $2.36 million liquidated damages the Port withheld. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, holding (1) the Local Government Contract Claims Act waives governmental immunity from suit on a contract claim for delay damages the contract does not call for; (2) the no-damages-for-delay provision in the parties’ contract did not shield the Port from liability for deliberately and wrongfully interfering with the contractor’s work; and (3) Petitioner was entitled to recover the liquidated damages withheld by the Port. View "Zachry Constr. Corp. v. Port of Houston Auth. of Harris County" on Justia Law

Petitioner worked for a BCG Attorney Search, Inc. until he left and started a competing firm. BCG’s president, Andrew Barnes, posted a statement on two of his websites implicating Petitioner in a kickback scheme during his employment with BCG. Petitioner sued BDG, Barnes, two of Barnes’s companies for defamation, seeking a permanent injunction requiring Barnes to remove from his websites the defamatory speech and prohibiting Barnes from making similar statements, in any form, in the future. The trial court granted summary judgment for Barnes, concluding that the relief Petitioner sought would constitute an impermissible prior restraint on speech under the Texas Constitution. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) a permanent injunction requiring the removal of posted speech that has been adjudicated defamatory is not a prior restraint; (2) a permanent injunction prohibiting future speech based on that adjudication is an unconstitutional infringement on Texans’ free-speech rights under the Texas Constitution; and (3) the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the extent Petitioner’s requested injunction did not constitute a prior restraint, View "Kinney v. Barnes" on Justia Law

Respondent was injured while working on board a dredging vessel operated by Petitioner. Respondent sued Respondent under the Jones Act, arguing that he was injured working under a specific order. Under maritime law, when a seaman is carrying out a specific order, his damages may not be reduced by a finding of contributory negligence. A jury found Respondent was working under a specific order when he was injured and awarded him damages. The jury also found Respondent fifty percent at fault for his injures, but based on the specific-order finding, the trial court did not reduce Respondent’s award. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) trial courts have the discretion to set a deadline for charge objections that falls before the reading of the charge to the jury, and the trial court in this case acted within its discretion in refusing to hear a last-minute charge objection, as the trial court provided a reasonable amount of time for counsel to examine and object to the change; and (2) sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that Respondent was following a specific order when he was injured. View "King Fisher Marine Serv., LP v. Tamez" on Justia Law

This suit was between a physician and other medical providers. Finding that Plaintiff-physician filed baseless pleadings in bad faith and with an improper purpose, the trial court imposed sanctions in excess of one million dollars. This was one of the highest reported monetary sanctions awards in Texas and the United States. The court of appeals affirmed the awards. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) due process requires that sanctions be just, meaning that there be a direct nexus between the sanction and the sanctionable conduct, and be visited on the true offender; (2) the trial court’s sanctions award in this case met due process requirements because Plaintiff’s pleadings asserted time-barred claims and address matters irrelevant to the lawsuit in an attempt to leverage a more favorable settlement; and (3) because the trial court, when assessing the amount of sanctions, failed to examine the extent to which Defendants bore some responsibility for the expenses they incurred in litigating a variety of issues for over four years, remand is required for the trial court to reassess the amount of the sanctions award. View "Nath v. Tex. Children’s Hosp." on Justia Law