Justice WAINWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice HECHT, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON and Justice WILLETT joined. After issuing an opinion in this certified question proceeding, we granted respondents' motion for rehearing and heard reargument of the case. Petitioner sold the real property at issue and we abated our proceeding to allow the certifying court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, to consider respondents' motion to dismiss the case as...
Chief Justice JEFFERSON delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Justice HECHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice WILLETT, and Justice LEHRMANN. We deny the motion for rehearing. We withdraw our opinion of July 1, 2011 and substitute the following in its place. Urban blight threatens neighborhoods. Either as a risk to public health or as a base for illicit activity, dilapidated structures harm property values far more than their numbers suggest. Cities must be able to abate 1 these nuisances to...
PER CURIAM. This case concerns an arbitration provision that allows each party to appoint one arbitrator to a panel, subject to certain requirements. At issue is whether Americo Life, Inc. waived its objection to the removal of the arbitrator it selected. The underlying dispute concerned the financing mechanism for Americo's purchase of several insurance companies from Robert Myer. 1 Pursuant to the financing agreement, Americo and Myer submitted their dispute to arbitration under American...
Justice GREEN delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice JOHNSON, and Justice LEHRMANN joined. This case arises out of patent infringement litigation. We consider whether federal courts possess exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction over state-based legal malpractice claims that require the application of federal patent law. The federal patent issue presented here is necessary, disputed, and substantial within the context of the overlying...
Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, and Justice GUZMAN joined. In this original proceeding Allcat Claims Service, L.P., a limited partnership, and one of its limited partners seek an order directing the Comptroller to refund franchise taxes Allcat paid that were attributable to partnership income allocated, but not distributed, to its natural-person partners. Allcat claims it is...
PER CURIAM. At issue in this case is whether sovereign immunity bars Roger Sefzik's lawsuit seeking declaratory relief under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act (UDJA) against the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). In City of El Paso v. Heinrich, we dismissed claims seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against governmental entities as barred by sovereign immunity. 284 S.W.3d 366 , 380 (Tex.2009). The court of appeals relied on our pre- Heinrich ultra vires precedent to...
PER CURIAM. Rolling Plains Groundwater Conservation District sued the City of Aspermont for water transportation fees and for a declaration that the City must comply with the District's rules. The court of appeals held that governmental immunity barred the District's claim for payment but not its declaratory judgment action. 258 S.W.3d 231 , 236. While this appeal was pending, we decided City of El Paso v. Heinrich, 284 S.W.3d 366 , 368-69 (Tex.2009), which is consistent with the court of...
PER CURIAM. The issue presented is whether an employee of a governmental unit may take an interlocutory appeal from an order denying his motion to dismiss based on section 101.106(e) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. We hold that he can and reverse the judgment of the court of appeals. 319 S.W.3d 905 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2010). Joel Graham sued Austin State Hospital, a governmental unit, and two of its employees, Dr. Vikar Nuzhath and Dr. Erik Lindfors ("the Doctors"), on health...
Chief Justice JEFFERSON delivered the opinion of the Court. After the State sought to condemn a tract of land, the owners subdivided the property into eight separate parcels. The trial court then severed the case into eight different proceedings. The State contends that the severance was improper, and it seeks a writ of mandamus requiring the trial court to vacate the order. Because the severance would require eight trials where only one is appropriate, and because it would preclude the State...
Justice WAINWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case we consider whether a regulatory permit to drill an injection well absolves the holder from civil tort liability for conduct authorized by the permit. Environmental Processing Systems, L.C. (EPS) obtained permits from the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) to construct and operate two deep wastewater injection wells on a tract next to land FPL Farming Ltd. (FPL)...
Chief Justice JEFFERSON delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN. An associate professor contends that her application for tenure was undermined by a department chair's summary of a performance evaluation in which the professor received an "exceptional" numerical rating. Although she was given the opportunity to rebut the summary, the professor asserts that the university prevented her from filing an official grievance....
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court. A Texas statute requires a business that offers live nude entertainment and allows the consumption of alcohol on its premises to remit to the Comptroller a $5 fee for each customer admitted. We are asked to decide whether the statute violates the right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. We hold it does not. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals 1 and remand the case to the trial...
Justice MEDINA delivered the opinion of the Court. The Texas Workers' Compensation Act authorizes the award of lifetime income benefits to employees who lose certain body parts or suffer certain injuries in work-related accidents. The specific body parts and injuries that qualify an employee for this type of benefit are enumerated in section 408.161 of the act. See TEX. LAB. CODE 408.161(a)(1)-(7). That enumeration includes, among others, "loss [or lost use] of both feet at or above the...
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, Justice WILLETT, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN joined. The right to lease minerals—the executive right—is one "stick" in the bundle of five real property rights that comprise a mineral estate. 1 We held long ago that the executive owes other owners of the mineral interest a duty of "utmost fair dealing", 2 but we have seldom had occasion to elaborate. In...
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court. Respondents contend that Vioxx, a prescription drug, caused their decedent's death. In Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Havner, 1 we set requirements for determining whether epidemiological evidence is scientifically reliable to prove causation. The parties here dispute what those requirements are, whether they apply in this case, and whether they were satisfied. We hold that Havner 's requirements apply and were not met, and that the...
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, and Justice GUZMAN joined, and in Parts I and III of which Justice JOHNSON joined. The parties dispute whether an "all risk" property damage insurance policy provides indemnity for certain expenses incurred in connection with a covered loss. Coverage was negotiated in the London market, and as is customary there, the parties reached agreement by lining through provisions in a form...
Justice HECHT delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice JOHNSON, Justice WILLETT, and Justice GUZMAN joined. The parties dispute whether an attorney fee agreement is ambiguous. The client contends that an agreement on law firm letterhead, signed by a lawyer on behalf of the firm, is with the firm, not with the lawyer personally. The lawyer counters that his use of personal pronouns in the agreement, as well as surrounding circumstances, create an ambiguity...
Justice GREEN delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we are asked to decide (1) whether citizens who signed a petition proposing a local ballot initiative have standing to assert their declaratory judgment claims that the voter-approved initiative is valid and must be enforced; and (2) the validity of the voter-approved initiative. Because the citizens' claims are not ripe, however, we cannot reach those issues. I Petitioners Carroll G. Robinson, Bruce R. Hotze, and Jeffrey N....
Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice WILLETT, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN joined. This appeal involves the issue of whether the trial court had jurisdiction over a claim against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to determine whether the Salt Fork of the Red River is navigable. The Sawyer Trust sued the Department for a declaratory judgment that the river is not navigable...
Justice JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice GUZMAN, and Justice LEHRMANN joined, and in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON and Justice HECHT joined except to Part II-B. This appeal involves a pay dispute between the City of Dallas and many of its police officers and firefighters. Pursuant to a referendum approved by the voters, the City adopted an ordinance addressing the pay of "each sworn police officer and fire fighter...
