Justice Willett delivered the opinion of the Court. This mandamus action poses one procedural question: Does a trial court have discretion to deny suspension of a non-money judgment when the State files a notice of appeal Here, a schoolteacher sought judicial review of the State Board for Educator Certification's revocation of his teaching certificate. The trial court reversed the revocation and refused to allow the Board to supersede the judgment pending appeal. Importantly, the...
PER CURIAM . Rafael Zuniga sued San Diego Tortilla (SDT) for personal injuries and 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 Zuniga. The trial court denied Essex's motions to dismiss, and the court of appeals denied Essex's petition for writ of mandamus. "In Texas, the general rule... is that an injured party cannot sue the tortfeasor's insurer directly until the...
PER CURIAM In this case the court of appeals remanded a claim for trial because it thought we had compelled this result in an earlier appeal. Because we did not, we reverse this portion of the court of appeals' judgment. Wolf Hollow I, L.P. owns a power plant. El Paso Marketing, L.P. provides gas for the plant under a Supply Agreement with Wolf Hollow. Gas is transported to the plant through a pipeline owned by Enterprise Texas Pipeline LLC. The gas is transported under terms of a...
PER CURIAM . The Local Government Contract Claims Act waives a local governmental entity's immunity from suit for breach of a services contract subject to the Act. TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE 271.151(2), 271.152. In City of Houston v. Williams, we held firefighters' employment contracts to be subject to the Act. 353 S.W.3d 128 , 131, 139 (Tex. 2011). Nevertheless, in the present case, the court of appeals held that the Act does not cover government employment contracts generally. 446 S.W.3d...
PER CURIAM . This case calls upon us to again apply the Texas Whistleblower Act. Rosaena Resendez was fired from her position at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) after she reported alleged wrongdoing to supervisors within the organization and to the office of a state senator. In Texas Department of Human Services v. Okoli, we recently reaffirmed that an internal report of wrongdoing does not trigger the Act's protection unless it is made directly to an authority with...
PER CURIAM. In this case involving allegations of underpaid insurance claims, we consider whether a trial court abused its discretion in ordering the defendant insurer to produce evidence related to insurance claims other than the plaintiff's. We hold that it did. Accordingly, we conditionally grant mandamus relief and order the trial court to withdraw its order compelling discovery. In September 2011 and June 2012 storms swept through the City of Cedar Hill and caused damage to Mary Erving'...
Justice LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents various issues regarding the proper manner of compensating a landowner for the destruction of trees on his property. As a general rule, when an injury to real property is temporary, the owner is entitled to damages commensurate with the cost of restoring his property, but when an injury to the same property is permanent, the owner is entitled to damages commensurate with the loss in the fair market value to the...
Chief Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice GREEN, Justice WILLETT, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice BROWN joined. Rule 202 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure allows "a proper court" to authorize a deposition to investigate a potential claim before suit is filed. 1 In this original mandamus proceeding, relator argues that a proper court must have personal jurisdiction over the potential defendant, or if not, the rule violates due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth...
Justice LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court. A hallmark of the right to free speech under both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions is the maxim that prior restraints are a heavily disfavored infringement of that right. So great is our reticence to condone prior restraints that we refuse to allow even unprotected speech to be banned if restraining such speech would also chill a substantial amount of protected speech. This danger is before the Court today, as we are asked whether a...
Chief Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice GREEN , Justice GUZMAN , Justice DEVINE , and Justice BROWN joined. The common law permits a contractor to recover damages for construction delays caused by the owner, but the parties are free to contract differently. A contractor may agree to excuse the owner from liability for delay damages, even when the owner is at fault. The contractor thereby assumes the risk of delay from, say, an owner's change...
Chief Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice GREEN , Justice GUZMAN , Justice LEHRMANN , and Justice BROWN joined. Rule 42(a) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure provides that when its requirements are met, "[o]ne or more members of a class may sue ... as representative parties on behalf of all". 1 It often happens that many class members do not personally appear in the action in any way, 2 and Rule 42 prescribes procedures to ensure that those...
Justice GUZMAN delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the Court with an opportunity to provide clarity in an area of property law that has lacked clarity for some time: implied easements. For over 125 years, we have distinguished between implied easements by way of necessity (which we refer to here as "necessity easements") and implied easements by prior use (which we refer to here as "prior use easements"). We created and have utilized the necessity easement for cases...
DON R. WILLETT, Justice. In Borg-Warner Corp. v. Flores, 1 we addressed standards imposed by Texas law for establishing causation in asbestos-disease cases. Flores concerned a plaintiff suffering from asbestosis. In today's case, the plaintiffs sued for damages resulting from the suffering and death of a family member, Timothy Bostic (Bostic), who succumbed to mesothelioma. We hold that the standard of substantial factor causation recognized in Flores applies to mesothelioma cases, and...
Justice BOYD delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice GUZMAN, Justice LEHRMANN, Justice DEVINE, and Justice BROWN joined. In this interlocutory appeal from the denial of a governmental entity's plea to the jurisdiction, we determine whether the parties' lease agreement constituted "a written contract stating the essential terms of [an] agreement for providing goods or services to [a] local governmental entity" under Chapter 271 of the Texas Local...
Justice WILLETT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN joined. This case requires us to interpret the definition of "plaintiff" in the Texas-resident exception to the forum non conveniens statute. A defendant estate was sued in Texas regarding a Mexican decedent's alleged responsibility for a car accident in Mexico. The estate filed a third-party claim against Ford. Wrongful-death beneficiaries — some of whom are...
Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice WILLETT, and Justice BROWN joined. This interlocutory appeal concerns an asbestos-related injury suit in which Union Carbide Corporation filed a motion to dismiss based on the plaintiffs' alleged failure to timely serve a statutorily compliant physician report. The Multi-District Litigation pretrial court denied the motion. On interlocutory appeal the court of appeals affirmed. It held that...
Chief Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court. The principal issue before us is whether the State's repeated recharacterization of private property as public constitutes a compensable taking under Article I, Section 17(a) of the Texas Constitution. 1 Though the State's conduct is troubling, it is not a taking. We affirm the court of appeals on that issue, 2 but we reverse on other issues and remand the case to the trial court for rendition of judgment. I A From the late...
Justice LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, Justice WILLETT, and Justice BOYD joined. A fundamental tenet of our legal system is that each and every trial is decided on the merits of the lawsuit being tried. After all, reaching the correct verdict is the goal of a fair and impartial judiciary. However, when the spoliation of evidence is at issue, this goal is hampered in conflicting ways. First, as is the case when evidence...
PER CURIAM. In this case, we address the duty a landowner or occupier owes to a trespasser. Here, a driver trespassed on a ranch while transporting a family. After being confronted by a ranch employee, the trespassing driver fled at high speed, and the vehicle rolled over, killing the family. The decedents' family (the Rodriguezes) filed wrongful death claims, including negligence and gross negligence. Because our case law makes clear that a land occupier owes only a duty to avoid injuring a...
PER CURIAM. In this negligence case involving a nightclub patron's injuries sustained during an altercation outside the club, the trial court rendered judgment against the club's purported owner, Graham Central Station, Inc. (GCS). Because no evidence supports the finding that GCS owned the club, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and render a take-nothing judgment in favor of GCS. Jesus Pe a was assaulted by other patrons of the Graham Central Station nightclub (the Nightclub) in...
