In this case, an inmate at a federal prison sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that prison guards negligently facilitated her sexual assault by another guard by violating regulations to escort her to him after midnight and failing to report the suspicious activity. The United States moved for summary judgment, arguing that employee selection and supervision were discretionary functions exempt from the FTCA, the assaulting guard was not acting within his employment, and the events were not foreseeable. The court denied the motion in full, finding genuine issues of material fact on whether the assisting guards acted within the scope of their employment, breached a duty to protect the inmate, and proximately caused her injury through their violations of prison rules that created a foreseeable risk of harm.
The case concerns a lawsuit brought by the mother of an 18-year-old inmate who died by suicide shortly after being placed in administrative segregation at a Texas state prison. The plaintiff alleged that several prison officials violated the inmate's Eighth Amendment rights by failing to protect him from a known risk of suicide or to respond adequately once the hanging began. The court granted summary judgment to Warden Robert Treon and Executive Director Gary Johnson on all claims, finding no basis for liability, but denied summary judgment to Officers Williams and Blanford and Sergeant Taylor on the claim that they failed to properly react to the suicide attempt. The denial rested on the existence of genuine issues of material fact arising from highly inconsistent witness accounts and reports about the timing and nature of the officers' observations and actions, which prevented a determination that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.
In this case, plaintiff Sharon Marketic obtained a home equity loan secured by a mortgage on her Texas property and later defaulted, prompting defendant U.S. Bank to seek foreclosure. She sued for declaratory and injunctive relief plus damages, alleging the loan documents violated Texas Constitution article XVI section 50(a)(6) requirements for homestead liens and that the property's agricultural-use designation under tax statutes barred foreclosure; the bank counterclaimed for fraud based on her representations about the property's use. The court addressed the bank's motion for partial summary judgment on all claims except those under TILA and RESPA. Applying Rule 56 standards and analyzing Texas homestead lien rules and legislative history on agricultural exemptions, the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part.
The case involved plaintiff Charles Rex Acker, a 63-year-old former Southwest Regional Sales Manager, suing his employer deBoer, Inc. under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act after his termination in late 2002. Acker claimed his firing was motivated by age bias, while deBoer asserted it resulted from his suspected involvement in a scheme with a departing supervisor and a competitor, based on emails and increased contacts with the competitor. The court denied deBoer's motion for summary judgment, finding genuine issues of material fact regarding whether age was a motivating factor and whether the employer's nondiscriminatory explanation was pretextual. The decision relied on evidence such as emails referencing Acker's role, the circumstances of his termination, and disputes over his communications with the competitor, without weighing credibility.
This case involved a products liability lawsuit filed by the Bryant family against Giacomini, the manufacturer of a propane gas valve, after a 2002 trailer fire in Texas that caused severe burn injuries and one death. The plaintiffs claimed the valve had design, manufacturing, and marketing defects under strict liability and negligence theories, plus breach of post-sale duties to warn or recall and express or implied warranties. The court denied the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on the design defect claims. It granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on manufacturing defect, marketing defect, post-sale duty to warn, and all warranty claims due to a lack of supporting evidence, but denied it on the design defect claims because genuine issues of material fact remained under Texas law.
This case is a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 filed by a Texas inmate serving a 45-year sentence who challenged a prison disciplinary conviction for an unauthorized commodity exchange. The inmate received punishments including 15 days of solitary confinement, privilege restrictions, classification changes, and forfeiture of 30 days of previously earned good-time credits, which he argued violated due process because the credits affected his mandatory supervised release date. The court initially granted relief but, on the respondent's motion to alter the judgment, vacated that order and denied the petition. The core reasoning was that the 30-day loss of good-time credits was de minimis in light of the inmate's lengthy sentence (representing about 0.18 percent of the total term), consistent with Fifth Circuit guidance in cases such as Malchi v. Thaler and Richards v. Dretke, and therefore did not implicate a protected liberty interest or require constitutional due process protections.
