PER CURIAM. The City of Houston was sued and filed a plea to the jurisdiction. When its plea was denied, the City did not appeal. Several months later it filed an amended plea to the jurisdiction, then filed this interlocutory appeal from the denial of its amended plea. The court of appeals dismissed part of the appeal, but considered the merits of part of it. The issue presented is whether the court of appeals properly exercised jurisdiction over part of the appeal. We hold that because the...
Chief Justice JEFFERSON delivered the opinion of the Court. Several homeowners alleged that noise and odor emanating from a gas company's compressor station caused a permanent nuisance. The company countered that because the homeowners' complaints predated their lawsuit by six years, limitations barred their action. A jury found that a permanent nuisance, which began just before the lawsuit was filed, diminished property values. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment for the...
PER CURIAM. In State Department of Highways & Public Transportation v. Payne, 838 S.W.2d 235 (Tex.1992), we considered whether an off-road condition can be a special defect for which the State's sovereign immunity is waived under the Texas Tort Claims Act. We noted that "[w]hether on a road or near one ... conditions can be `special defects ...' only if they pose a threat to the ordinary users of a particular roadway." Payne, 838 S.W.2d at 238-39 n. 3. In this special defect case...
PER CURIAM. In this case, the trial court determined that an injured worker had been assigned no valid impairment rating upon which to base impairment income benefits under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act, TEX. LAB.CODE 401.001-506.002. The court of appeals affirmed. 396 S.W.3d 597 . In doing so, the court noted that "no mechanism exists in the [Workers' Compensation] Act to remand matters back to [the Department of Insurance's Workers' Compensation Division]." 396 S.W.3d at 603. We...
PER CURIAM. This case is before us a second time. It concerns a business dispute between Rancho La Valencia, Inc. and Aquaplex, Inc. 1 In the earlier appeal, we held that the evidence of fraudulent intent by Rancho in connection with the execution of a memorandum of settlement agreement (MSA) was legally sufficient. 297 S.W.3d 768 , 775 ( Rancho I ). We next analyzed the court of appeals' treatment of damages for fraudulent inducement of the MSA, and held that "some evidence supported an...
PER CURIAM. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice Community Justice Assistance Division (TDCJ) brings this interlocutory appeal from the denial of its plea to the jurisdiction as to claims for damages related to actions of two Nueces County Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF) officers. The claims against TDCJ based on the use of tangible property involved intent to accomplish intentional torts, and its plea to the jurisdiction as to those claims should have been granted. Its plea as...
PER CURIAM. The West Hardin County Consolidated Independent School District obtained an in rem delinquent property tax judgment against an oil and gas lease that Wallace Maury Poole owned and operated. Poole did not appeal, and the District foreclosed its judgment lien on the leasehold, taking ownership. The Railroad Commission then directed Poole to plug a well on the lease, see TEX. NAT. RES.CODE 89.022(d), which Poole failed to do. Poole asserted that the responsibility lay with...
PER CURIAM. Lance Morris injured his back while working and his employer's workers' compensation insurer, Texas Mutual Insurance Company (TMIC), accepted the injury as compensable. Three years later when it was discovered that Morris had herniated lumbar intervertebral discs, TMIC disputed whether they were causally related to the original injury. The Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers' Compensation (the division) determined that the disc herniations were related to the original...
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, and Justice GUZMAN. Since first imposing a franchise tax in 1893, the Legislature has restructured it several times, drawing various distinctions among taxpayers with adjustments, deductions, and exemptions that have become elaborate. Petitioner in this original proceeding contends that the franchise tax now in place bears no reasonable relationship to its...
PER CURIAM. In Casteel, 1 we held that error is presumed harmful and a new trial is required when a trial court submits a broad-form liability question containing both valid and invalid theories of liability because the appellate court cannot determine whether the jury relied on an invalid theory. In this employer retaliation case, a broad-form jury question allowed the jury to find liability based on a legal theory that was jurisdictionally barred and thus could not support liability....
PER CURIAM. In this workers' compensation case, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) argues that it is immune from an award of attorney fees granted to its injured employee. We agree and accordingly reverse in part the judgment of the court of appeals. Charles Manbeck, an AISD employee, injured himself on the job while tightening a door closer. AISD, a self-insured governmental entity deemed an "insurance carrier" under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act (Act), see TEX. LAB.CODE...
PER CURIAM. Recently in York v. State, we reiterated that "`[a]n action taken in violation of the automatic [in bankruptcy] stay is void, not merely voidable.'" 373 S.W.3d 32 , 38 (Tex. 2012) (quoting Continental Casing Corp. v. Samedan Oil Corp., 751 S.W.2d 499 , 501 (Tex.1988) (per curiam)). In this case, the court of appeals, sua sponte, dismissed the entire proceeding as violating the automatic stay. 349 S.W.3d 42 (Tex.App.-El Paso 2010). Because the record does not support the...
PER CURIAM. In this case, we must decide whether mere statements of intent to discontinue a joint venture cause automatic dissolution of the venture as a matter of law. We hold that statements expressing an intent to dissolve a partnership at some future time do not necessarily constitute an immediate dissolution of the partnership as a matter of law, and that the court of appeals erred in affirming summary judgment on that basis. Accordingly, without hearing oral argument pursuant to Texas...
Justice LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, and Justice GUZMAN joined. This case involves a dispute over the fair market value of acreage on which a gas processing facility is located. We must decide whether the trial court abused its discretion by admitting an expert's testimony that allegedly violated the value-to-the-taker rule, which prohibits measuring land's value by its unique value to a...
Justice WAINWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, Justice WILLETT, and Justice GUZMAN joined. After being seriously injured in an accident by a U-Haul truck, Talmadge Waldrip 1 sued several U-Haul corporate entities and an independent dealer on theories of negligence and gross negligence, alleging that the accident was the result of a systematic pattern of poor inspection and repair practices,...
Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice HECHT, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice GREEN, Justice WILLETT, and Justice GUZMAN joined. In this health care liability claim the trial court denied Rusk State Hospital's challenge to the plaintiffs' expert reports. The Hospital filed an interlocutory appeal from that ruling. On appeal the Hospital, for the first time, asserted it was immune from suit. The court of appeals refused to consider the immunity issue because it had not...
Justice WAINWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN joined. The judiciary has a historic duty to uphold constitutional protections of individual liberties. 1 But the individual must present a claim countenanced by law. It is not prudent to sanction a seventy million dollar demand against the State of Texas for an alleged taking of a property interest when 1) as acknowledged by all parties,...
Justice GUZMAN delivered the opinion of the Court in which Justice HECHT, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, and Justice WILLETT joined. The Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA) 1 is a comprehensive fair employment practices act and remedial scheme, modeled after Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), 2 that provides the framework for employment discrimination claims in Texas. At issue here is section 21.202 of the TCHRA,...
Justice GUZMAN delivered the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON and Justice LEHRMANN joined. In this appeal from the City of Austin's (City) condemnation of property to build a parking garage for a nearby convention center and a facility to chill water to cool nearby buildings, we examine and define the scope of judicial review of legislative takings. The Texas Constitution and the Local Government Code...
PER CURIAM. The Texas Tort Claims Act generally limits a governmental unit's potential liability for premise-liability damages by classifying the user of the government's real property as a licensee rather than an invitee. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE 101.022(a). This limitation does not apply, however, when the government's duty to warn involves a special defect such as an excavation or obstruction on a highway, road, or street. Id. 101.022(b). The principal question in this premises-...
