David M. Medina

This case concerns a divorce proceeding in which Jack and Vicki Milner executed a mediated settlement agreement (MSA) under Texas Family Code § 6.602 that assigned Jack's interests in two Thelin business entities to Vicki, subject to the partnership agreement's requirement of unanimous consent from other partners. The trial court entered a divorce decree enforcing the MSA, but the court of appeals reversed in part, concluding there was no meeting of the minds on a material term and setting aside the MSA. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the remand of the property division for further proceedings but held that the MSA itself should not have been set aside. The Court reasoned that the MSA satisfied the statutory formalities, was unambiguous on its face, and could not be revoked once executed, even though third-party consents were ultimately not obtained and the decree did not fully implement the transfer mechanics.

family lawproperty

The case involved a workers' compensation dispute in which employee Carmen Muro sought lifetime income benefits under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act after a workplace fall injured her hips, back, shoulder, and neck, impairing her ability to walk and work despite no direct injury to her feet or hands. The trial court and court of appeals upheld an award of lifetime benefits based on the total loss of use of both feet (and one hand), but the Texas Supreme Court reversed, rendering judgment that Muro was not entitled to such benefits. The court held that section 408.161 of the Labor Code limits lifetime income benefits exclusively to the specific enumerated injuries and body parts listed in the statute, such as the loss of both feet at or above the ankle, and requires evidence of an injury extending to those statutory body parts themselves rather than merely to other parts that affect their use.

labor & employment

This case concerned whether a business auto insurance policy covered claims that bus passengers contracted tuberculosis from an infected driver during a school field trip. The trial court and court of appeals held that the policy could apply and required further factual findings on where the passengers became infected. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the policy did not provide coverage. The Court reasoned that the passengers' injuries did not result from the use of the bus as a vehicle but instead from the bus company's decision to employ an unhealthy driver, so the bus was not a substantial factor in causing the harm.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

This case involves a Texas franchise tax dispute over how TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co., a Delaware corporation based in Houston, should apportion receipts from licensing seismic and geophysical data to customers in Texas. The Comptroller reclassified these receipts as revenue from the use of a license in Texas rather than from the sale of an intangible asset, which increased the company's taxable share and led to an assessment of over $1.3 million in additional taxes plus penalties. The lower courts upheld the Comptroller's classification, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the receipts are properly treated as sales of intangibles. The core reasoning is that the master license agreements show TGS retains title to the data and grants only limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable use rights, and the relevant tax statutes and rules allocate such intangible sale receipts based on the payor's legal domicile rather than the place of use.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

The case involved Diane Lee Norman, a probationary employee at the Travis Central Appraisal District, who sued for retaliatory discharge under Chapter 451 of the Texas Labor Code after being terminated shortly after filing a workers’ compensation claim. The appraisal district filed a plea to the jurisdiction, arguing that governmental immunity had not been waived for such claims under the current version of Chapter 504 of the Labor Code. The Texas Supreme Court held that Chapter 504 no longer waives immunity for retaliatory discharge claims against political subdivisions, reversing the court of appeals and dismissing the case. The core reasoning was that the 2005 amendment to Chapter 504, stating it does not waive immunity, combined with incorporation language and other provisions, fails to provide the clear and unambiguous waiver of immunity required by law, making prior precedent from City of LaPorte v. Barfield inapplicable.

labor & employmentprocedure

In this mandamus proceeding, the Rubiola defendants, who were involved in selling and financing a home to the Salmons, sought to compel arbitration of claims alleging misrepresentations and violations of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act related to the sale and repairs. The trial court denied the motion because the Rubiolas had not signed the arbitration agreement executed during mortgage financing, but the agreement expressly defined parties to include non-signatories such as affiliates, officers, agents, and representatives of Rubiola Mortgage Company. The court held that signatories to an arbitration agreement may grant enforcement rights to designated non-signatories, that the Rubiolas qualified as such parties here, and that the agreement's broad language covering all controversies and past agreements between the parties extended to the underlying real estate transaction. Accordingly, the court concluded that the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to compel arbitration and conditionally granted mandamus relief under the Federal Arbitration Act.

procedurepropertybusiness & regulatory

The case concerns Billy James Smith's application for compensation under the Texas Tim Cole Act (formerly the Wrongful Imprisonment Act) after his 1986 conviction for aggravated sexual assault was overturned based on DNA evidence establishing actual innocence. The Comptroller reduced Smith's award by excluding the period of his revoked parole on a prior robbery conviction, applying the Act's provision that bars compensation for any time served under a concurrent sentence. The Texas Supreme Court held that the concurrent-sentence restriction does not apply when the wrongful conviction itself caused the revocation of parole and resulting concurrent imprisonment, relying on the statutory text and an analogous attorney general opinion involving a Tulia exoneration. The Court conditionally granted mandamus relief directing the Comptroller to recalculate and pay the full compensation amount without the reduction.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a health care liability claim filed by Debbie Stockton against Dr. Howard Offenbach for alleged malpractice during the birth of her son, where she was unable to serve the required expert report within the 120-day statutory deadline because the physician's whereabouts were unknown after he lost his medical license. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, but the court of appeals reversed, and the Texas Supreme Court affirmed that dismissal was required. The court held that Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 74.351 provides no exception to the 120-day deadline for due diligence efforts or impossibility of service, aside from a written agreement of the parties or a limited extension for a deficient report, neither of which applied here. It further rejected the argument that the statute was unconstitutional as applied, concluding that the Legislature's unambiguous deadline must be enforced as written despite the circumstances.

proceduretorts & liabilityhealthcare

The case involved a health care liability claim under the Texas Medical Liability Act, where the plaintiff sued a physician for alleged negligence in failing to take precautions against a pulmonary embolism that caused the patient's death. No expert report was served within the required 120 days after filing suit, leading the trial court to dismiss the claim with prejudice but deny the physician's request for attorney's fees; the court of appeals affirmed the denial, finding the attorney's testimony insufficient to prove reasonable fees were incurred. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the statute mandates an award of reasonable attorney's fees and costs upon failure to serve a timely expert report, and that the attorney's testimony about his experience and the fees for a typical case like this one constituted some evidence of reasonableness and incurrence. The court remanded for further proceedings on the fee award.

healthcareproceduretorts & liability

In this original mandamus proceeding, the Texas Supreme Court considered whether plaintiffs' counsel in a medical malpractice suit against Columbia Valley Healthcare System should be disqualified because the firm hired a legal assistant who had previously worked on the same case for defense counsel, including handling privileged documents. The Court held that disqualification was required and directed the trial court to grant the motion. The core reasoning was that the hiring firm failed to rebut the presumption of shared confidences, as its oral instructions alone were ineffective without other formal screening steps like written policies or limiting file access, and the assistant actually performed work on the matter at the attorney's direction.

proceduretorts & liability

This case involved a dispute between Regal Finance, a secured creditor that purchased auto loan notes from used-car dealer Tex Star Motors, and Tex Star over Regal's attempt to recover a deficiency judgment after repossessing and selling collateral vehicles following Tex Star's default and refusal to maintain a required dealer-reserve fund. The jury found that Regal had disposed of the collateral in a commercially reasonable manner under Texas's adoption of UCC Article 9 and awarded Regal a deficiency. The court of appeals reversed, holding there was no evidence of commercial reasonableness because the jury charge required proof of an industry standard that Regal had not provided. The Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, concluding that the jury instructions tracked the UCC standard without imposing additional requirements and that the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury's finding of commercial reasonableness.

business & regulatoryproperty

In TXI Transportation Co. v. Hughes, the case was a wrongful death and survival action arising from a multi-fatality collision between a family vehicle and an eighteen-wheel gravel truck on a two-lane highway. The plaintiffs claimed the truck driver negligently crossed the centerline first and supported their theory with accident-reconstruction expert testimony; the defendants objected to both the expert's reliability and the admission of evidence that the driver was an undocumented immigrant. The Supreme Court of Texas held that the expert's opinion was reliable under evidentiary standards and therefore legally sufficient to support the negligence verdict. The court further concluded that the driver's immigration status was irrelevant for impeachment or any other purpose at trial and that its admission was harmful error, requiring reversal of the judgment and remand for a new trial.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a dispute over whether a guardian could sue Morgan Stanley on behalf of a client diagnosed with dementia, after the client had signed account agreements containing arbitration clauses. Morgan Stanley sought to compel arbitration, but the guardian argued that the client lacked mental capacity to form a valid contract, raising the question of whether a court or an arbitrator should resolve that threshold issue. The Texas Supreme Court held that the trial court, rather than an arbitrator, must decide the mental capacity question. The court reasoned that challenges to the very existence of a contract (as opposed to its validity) fall outside the separability doctrine established in Prima Paint, and that lack of capacity renders an agreement voidable in a manner that courts, not arbitrators, should address. Accordingly, the court denied mandamus relief to compel arbitration.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved homeowners who purchased a house and later sued the builder for negligence and DTPA violations after discovering water damage from a faulty french drain system; the builder designated an engineering firm as a responsible third party, leading the homeowners to join the firm as a defendant more than ten years after the home's completion. The Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and rendered judgment dismissing the claims against the engineering firm, holding that Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 33.004(e) revives only claims barred by statutes of limitations and does not apply to claims extinguished by statutes of repose such as section 16.008. The court reasoned that statutes of repose provide a fixed cutoff date independent of claim accrual, unlike limitations periods, and that the Legislature's specific use of "limitations" in the revival statute—contrasted with its separate references to "limitation or repose" elsewhere in the code—demonstrated no intent to revive repose-barred claims.

proceduretorts & liability

The case concerned whether an adult who had been adjudicated delinquent as a juvenile and sentenced to forty years under the Texas Juvenile Justice Code had a statutory right to appointed counsel in a post-adjudication habeas corpus proceeding filed in juvenile court. The juvenile court denied the request for counsel and a hearing, the court of appeals upheld that denial, and the Texas Supreme Court was asked to issue mandamus relief compelling appointment of counsel. The Court held that the Juvenile Justice Code does not grant such a right, reasoning that while the Code mandates counsel for specific proceedings such as adjudication hearings, disposition hearings, transfer hearings, and detention hearings, it contains no provision extending that right to post-adjudication habeas corpus actions challenging the legality of commitment after transfer to adult prison. The Court further noted that the Code's retention of jurisdiction over former juveniles does not create a general entitlement to counsel in this context and denied mandamus relief.

criminal lawfamily lawprocedurecivil rights

Robert Gish, a truck driver, was injured when he fell from the top rail of a Super Hopper trailer while trying to adjust a loading downspout at a fertilizer plant; he sued the trailer's manufacturer, Timpte Industries, claiming that the ladder's top rungs and the narrow, slippery top rail constituted design defects that made the trailer unreasonably dangerous. The trial court granted Timpte a no-evidence summary judgment, the court of appeals reversed, and the Texas Supreme Court reversed again, reinstating the summary judgment. The Court reasoned that the risks of climbing atop the trailer were open and obvious, the provided warnings were adequate, and Gish offered no evidence that the alleged defects rendered the trailer unreasonably dangerous or that his proposed alternative designs (such as removing the top ladder rungs or widening the rail) would reduce the overall risk of harm.

torts & liability

The case In re J.O.A. concerned the involuntary termination of parental rights of indigent parents Timothy and Trena M. to their twin children after the Department of Family and Protective Services removed the children due to the mother's drug use and the parents failed a family service plan. The parents did not file a timely statement of points on appeal as required by Texas Family Code section 263.405(b), but appealed challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, ineffective assistance of trial counsel, and the constitutionality of the procedural bar in section 263.405(i). The Supreme Court of Texas held that an ineffective assistance claim may be raised despite the lack of a statement of points and that the bar is unconstitutional as applied when it prevents review of a meritorious sufficiency challenge, reasoning that counsel's failure to preserve appellate rights violated the parents' due process rights under the Family Code's guarantee of counsel for indigent parents. The court concluded the evidence was not legally insufficient to support termination of the father's rights but modified the court of appeals' judgment to remand for a new trial on that issue.

family lawprocedurecivil rights

This case involved a medical malpractice suit brought by the family of a patient who died from post-surgical complications after a hysterectomy performed by Dr. Benny Phillips. A jury awarded damages exceeding the statutory cap under the former Medical Liability and Insurance Improvement Act (art. 4590i), and the trial court entered judgment against the doctor without applying the cap, citing the insurer's alleged negligent failure to settle under the Stowers doctrine; the court of appeals affirmed. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, ruling that the Stowers exception in section 11.02(c) applies only to insurers and does not remove the liability cap for physicians themselves under section 11.02(a). The court reasoned that the statute's plain text distinguishes between capping physician liability and excepting insurers from the cap when Stowers facts are present, requiring remand for a judgment limited to the inflation-adjusted cap amount.

healthcaretorts & liability

The case arose after Rolando Montez died in jail by hanging himself with a cord from a collect-only telephone installed by JCW Electronics under a contract with the city; his mother and others sued JCW and the City of Port Isabel, asserting claims including negligence and breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. A jury found Montez 60 percent at fault, the City 25 percent at fault, and JCW 15 percent at fault, but the trial court rendered judgment for the plaintiffs on certain theories while the court of appeals affirmed on the implied-warranty claim alone, holding that Chapter 33's proportionate-responsibility rules did not apply. The Texas Supreme Court reversed that holding, deciding that a claim for breach of implied warranty seeking damages for death or personal injury is a tort claim subject to Chapter 33's apportionment scheme. The Court reasoned that the statute's text covering "any cause of action based on tort" encompasses such warranty claims, and the 60 percent fault attributed to Montez therefore bars recovery against JCW.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved Laura Schubert suing Pleasant Glade Assembly of God and its members for intentional torts such as false imprisonment and assault after church members physically restrained her during episodes they viewed as spiritual confrontations with demons. The trial court awarded Schubert damages, which the court of appeals generally affirmed. The Texas Supreme Court reversed and dismissed the case, concluding that the church was not judicially estopped from raising First Amendment defenses and that the claims presented an ecclesiastical dispute over religious conduct that would unconstitutionally entangle courts in matters of church doctrine under the Free Exercise Clause.

religious libertytorts & liabilitycivil rights