Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined. The Texas Constitution requires that all property be taxed "in the county where situated". 1 But for 46 years, Nueces County and San Patricio County have been locked in a Texas Death Match 2 over their shoreline boundary on Corpus Christi Bay, and for the past 10 years both have taxed the same piers, docks, and other facilities...
Petitioner's petition for review, filed herein in the above numbered and styled case, having been duly considered, is ordered, and hereby is, denied. I, BLAKE A. HAWTHORNE, Clerk of the Supreme Court of Texas, do hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the orders of the Supreme Court of Texas in the case numbered and styled as above, as the same appear of record in the minutes of said Court under the date shown. It is further ordered that petitioner, CITY OF DALLAS, pay...
PAUL W. GREEN , Justice . This case arises out of a property-tax dispute regarding ownership of tangible personal property. Based on Sebastian Cotton & Grain Ltd.'s representation that it owned grain inventory stored on its property, Willacy County Appraisal District (WCAD) listed Sebastian as the owner of the grain on the 2009 appraisal roll. After receiving the tax bill, Sebastian requested a correction to the appraisal roll and produced to WCAD documents showing it had sold the grain to...
Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Boyd, Justice Brown, and Justice Blacklock joined. To protect the separation of powers essential to the structure and function of American governments, the political question doctrine teaches that the Judicial Branch will abstain from matters committed by constitution and law to the Executive and Legislative Branches. 1 "The complex[,] subtle, and professional...
PER CURIAM . The issues in this appeal of a condemnation judgment are whether the trial court erroneously admitted and excluded various evidence at trial, thereby probably resulting in rendition of an improper judgment. We hold that the trial court's evidentiary holdings were not an abuse of discretion. Because the court of appeals held otherwise, we reverse that court's judgment and reinstate the judgment of the trial court. The State of Texas planned to condemn a portion of a 33,000...
Chief Justice Hecht delivered the opinion of the Court. The roving, roiling debate over local control of public affairs has not, with increased age, lost any of its vigor. From public education 1 to immigration policy 2 to fracking 3 to shopping bags, the sides are always deeply divided. 4 "Judges have no dog in this fight. Our duty is to apply the rules fairly and equally to both sides." 5 The Texas Constitution states that city ordinances cannot conflict with state law. 6 The...
Justice Green delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, Justice Brown, and Justice Blacklock joined. This is a medical-malpractice case involving multiple issues. Shannon McCoy (Shannon) was thirty-seven weeks pregnant and under the prenatal obstetrical care of Dr. Debra Gunn, an obstetrician and gynecologist (ob/gyn) associated with Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates, P.A. (OGA). Shannon presented herself to the hospital...
PER CURIAM . Hurricane Ike damaged the Fuenteses' home in 2008. The Fuenteses filed a claim with their insurer, State Farm, for exterior and interior damage. State Farm paid the Fuenteses $4,988.63 for exterior damage, but an adjuster concluded the hurricane did not cause the interior damage. The Fuenteses sued State Farm for breach of contract, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, fraud, and Insurance Code violations. After filing suit, the Fuenteses' counsel sent State Farm a...
Justice Lehrmann delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Devine, Justice Brown, and Justice Blacklock joined. This action stems from a contract dispute over an offset provision in an oil and gas lease. The court of appeals held that the lessee did not conclusively demonstrate compliance with the provision and reversed the trial court's summary judgment in the lessee's favor. Because the court of appeals read a requirement into the lease that its...
Justice Blacklock delivered the opinion of the Court. In this commercial dispute, the trial court granted partial summary judgment based on the so-called "sham affidavit rule." Under the rule, if a party submits an affidavit that conflicts with the affiant's prior sworn testimony and does not provide a sufficient explanation for the conflict, a trial court may disregard the affidavit when deciding whether the party has raised a genuine fact issue to avoid summary judgment. Most Texas...
Justice Devine delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 12.115 of the Texas Education Code requires the Commissioner of Education to revoke an open-enrollment charter school's charter after three consecutive years of "an unacceptable performance rating," an unsatisfactory "financial accountability performance rating," or any combination of the two. TEX. EDUC. CODE 12.115(c). The Commissioner's revocation decision is subject to an administrative review, but the decision may not be...
Justice Blacklock delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from the denial of a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA). The defendant, John Adams, moved to dismiss the defamation claim filed against him. The court of appeals affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss, holding that Adams's allegedly defamatory communications did not relate to a "matter of public concern." Because we conclude that the challenged communications do relate to a "...
PER CURIAM . In this original proceeding, the plaintiff in a personal injury case arising from a traffic accident seeks mandamus relief from trial court discovery sanctions. The trial court judge in Jim Wells County, where the case is pending, denied plaintiff Carolina Garza's motion for protective orders regarding discovery sought from some of Garza's medical providers. The custodians of the medical providers' records are located and were served in Bexar County, are not parties to the...
Justice Green delivered the opinion of the Court. This case involves a law firm's quantum-meruit suit for the reasonable value of its services in assisting its client reach a comprehensive settlement of various lawsuits filed against him. We must decide whether Texas Government Code section 82.065 or our common law permits the firm's quantum-meruit recovery for services it performed under an unenforceable contingent-fee agreement and whether the firm's damages expert improperly based his...
Justice Boyd announced the Court's judgment and delivered the Court's opinion as to Parts I, II, and III.A, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Green, Justice Guzman, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined, a plurality opinion as to Parts III.B and III.C, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Lehrmann, and Justice Devine joined, and an opinion as to Parts III.D, III.E, III.F, and III.G, in which Justice Lehrmann and Justice Devine joined. Having granted Petitioner's...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents two questions. The first is procedural: Did ACT Pipe and Supply, Inc., in defending a favorable judgment notwithstanding the jury's verdict, successfully raise a "cross-point" in the court of appeals that preserved an alternative argument proscribing the jury's original verdict We say yes — ACT did not formally label its argument a "cross-point," but the substance of that argument, if accepted, would nonetheless vitiate...
Justice Guzman delivered the opinion of the Court. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used. — Oliver Wendell Holmes We have long articulated a principle of contract construction that permits courts to consult the facts and circumstances surrounding a negotiated contract's execution to aid the interpretation of its language. 2 Despite...
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case, we must determine whether the lessee of certain mineral interests justifiably relied on extra-contractual representations by the lessor's agent despite "red flags" and a negation-of-warranty clause in the sales documents explicitly placing the risk of title failure on the lessee. Because we hold, as a matter of law, that the lessee could not so justifiably rely, we reverse the court of appeals and reinstate the trial court's...
Justice Johnson delivered the opinion of the Court. This is the second appeal arising out of a judgment dated October 20, 2014. In the first appeal, Lee Nick McFadin, III was the appellant and posted a supersedeas bond. After the appeal was unsuccessful, the trial court ordered McFadin and his surety to pay the full amount of the bond to the successful appellees. McFadin appealed from that order, but the court of appeals concluded it lacked jurisdiction because the payment order was not a...
