PER CURIAM . The Texas Medical Liability Act requires plaintiffs asserting a health care liability claim to serve each defendant with an "adequate" expert report or face dismissal of their claim. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE 74.351( l ). The issue in this case is whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying the defendants' motions to dismiss when it read several experts' reports together to satisfy the Act's adequacy requirement. See id. We hold the trial court did not...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Willett, Justice Guzman, Justice Lehrmann, and Justice Devine joined. This workers' compensation case requires us to consider the meaning of "issue" as Title 5 of the Labor Code uses that word. The court of appeals conflated Labor Code "issues" with appellate "issues" and consequently defined the word too narrowly. On that point, we reverse and remand to the court of...
Justice Boyd delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a Title IV-D associate judge's order modifying conservatorship and child support for three children. The primary issue is whether the Title IV-D associate judge had authority to enter an order modifying conservatorship. The Legislature recently amended the Family Code to expressly grant Title IV-D associate judges such authority. The court of appeals held that Title IV-D judges had no such authority before the recent...
Justice Green delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must determine whether legally sufficient evidence supports a jury's conclusion that the negligence of a premature infant's treating neonatologist proximately caused her loss of vision. The evidence shows that, despite D.B.'s extreme prematurity, had her retinopathy of prematurity been diagnosed and treated early enough, it is more likely than not that the blood-vessel growth in her eyes would have been slowed to the point...
Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Willett, Justice Guzman, Justice Lehmann, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined. The Texas Citizens Participation Act ("the Act") 1 provides a procedure for expeditiously dismissing a non-meritorious legal action that "is based on, relates to, or is in response to the party's exercise of ... the right of free speech", 2 defined as "a communication made in connection with a matter...
Justice Boyd delivered the opinion of the Court. The trial court denied the City of Houston's and its Mayor's pleas to the jurisdiction and issued a temporary injunction prohibiting them from "furnishing benefits to persons who were married in other jurisdictions to City employees of the same sex." While their interlocutory appeal was pending in the court of appeals, the United States Supreme Court held that states may not "exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms...
Justice Guzman delivered the opinion of the Court. The liberty of the electors in the exercise of the right vested in them by the Constitution to choose public officers on whatever principle or dictated by whatever motive they see fit ... cannot be denied. 1 Political liberty is the bedrock of our democracy, and the right of citizens to choose their public officials and political associations is deeply rooted in our constitutional firmament. The vast breadth of the freedoms "We the...
Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Willett, Justice Guzman, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined. Following personal disagreements and harsh words, one convenience store employee picked a fistfight with another employee and that employee's father on store premises. Tragically, the father later died, and his family sued the employer, alleging that its negligent supervision of its employees caused the decedent's death....
Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Willett, Justice Boyd, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined. The principal question in this case is whether, under the terms of a bankruptcy court order confirming a plan of reorganization and an agreement for sale of the debtor's assets, the purchaser was assigned an undisclosed contractual indemnity obligation of the debtor. We agree with the court of appeals 1 that the answer is yes and therefore affirm. I...
Justice Devine delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Willett, Justice Guzman, and Justice Brown joined. The Jones Act provides a compensation scheme designed to mitigate the unique perils faced by "seamen" — maritime workers with a substantial connection to a "vessel in navigation." Chandris v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347 , 357, 115 S.Ct. 2172, 132 L.Ed.2d 314 (1995). But without straightforward statutory definitions, and with courts left to wade into a...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, and Justice Boyd joined. Black's Law Dictionary tells us that to "expunge" is "[t]o remove from a record[;]... to erase or destroy." 1 Today we must decide just how much notice is "erased" or "destroyed" when a statute expunges a notice of pending litigation, or lis pendens. Sandcastle Homes, Inc., and NewBiss Property, LP, each bought real property involved in a title dispute. The...
Justice Green delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must determine whether the court of appeals erred by reversing the trial court's order granting summary judgment in favor of multiple defendants on the plaintiff's claims for breach of contract and tortious interference with contract. Because we conclude that the plaintiff's employer was not required to prove the reasons it terminated the plaintiff's employment contract "without cause" and that the relevant provisions of...
Justice Lehrmann delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we examine whether a judgment against an insured defendant was the product of a "fully adversarial trial" and is thus enforceable against the defendant's insurer. Homeowners sued their builder for failing to construct their home in a good and workmanlike manner, and the builder's commercial general-liability insurer wrongfully refused to defend the builder in that suit. The case went to trial, resulting in a judgment in...
Justice Johnson delivered the opinion of the Court. This case involves the questions of whether two directors breached their fiduciary duties to a corporation, and if so, whether the evidence and jury findings support the remedies imposed by the trial court. Longview Energy Company sued two of its directors and entities associated with them after discovering one of the entities, Riley-Huff Energy Group LLC, purchased mineral leases in an area where Longview had been investigating the...
Justice Guzman delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Green, Justice Willett, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined. The discovery dispute in this mandamus proceeding arises in the context of multidistrict litigation involving allegations of underpaid homeowner insurance claims. The issue is whether a party's attorney-billing information is discoverable when the party challenges an opposing party's attorney-fee request as unreasonable or unnecessary...
Justice Guzman delivered the opinion of the Court. Electronic discovery plays an increasingly significant role in litigation and, often, at significant expense. Given the prevalence of discoverable electronic data, discovery disputes involving electronically stored information (ESI) are a growing litigation concern. With few occasions to enter the fray, 1 we have an opportunity in these consolidated mandamus proceedings to provide further clarity regarding ESI discovery. Though...
Justice Green delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must determine whether the court of appeals erred in concluding that the evidence of the petitioner's future lost profits was legally insufficient to support the jury's award and whether the exemplary damages award is unconstitutionally excessive despite the court of appeals' suggested remittitur. We agree that the evidence is legally insufficient to support any award of future lost profits, but we conclude that the court...
PER CURIAM . At trial, a presumption operates to establish a fact until rebutted, Dubai Petroleum Co. v. Kazi, 12 S.W.3d 71 , 80-81 (Tex. 2000), but not in summary judgment proceedings, Missouri-Kansas-Texas R.R. Co. v. City of Dallas, 623 S.W.2d 296 , 297-98 (Tex. 1981). Because the court of appeals misapplied this rule, 518 S.W.3d 33 , 2015 WL 3772225 (Tex. App. — San Antonio 2015), we reverse its judgment and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings. Petitioner...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court. We are asked in this case to recognize tortious interference with an inheritance as a viable cause of action in Texas. Petitioners and cross-respondents, the Kinsels, argue we already did so more than sixty years ago. We disagree. Although some of our courts of appeals have recognized the tort, we have not. And because the Kinsels have an adequate remedy in this case — a constructive trust imposed on the disputed inheritance — we are not...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a complex employment-discrimination case implicating the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act and multiple common-law tort doctrines. It arises from a report that Gilberto Rincones, a refinery technician, failed an employment-related drug test. Rincones sued his employer, WHM Custom Services, Inc.; the owner of the refinery, Exxon Mobil; and the drug-testing administrator, DISA, Inc. The trial court granted summary judgment for...
