Restlessness over a long-pending oil and gas case

“Dispute has industry, mineral owners nervous”.

The Fort Worth Business Press takes a closer look at a long-pending oil and gas case out of Corpus Christi, which is apparently causing uncertainty among the companies involved in developing the Barnett Shale.

Here’s the first sentence: “One name above others strikes fear into the hearts of Texas oil and gas operators: Garza, or more specifically, the Supreme Court of Texas case No. 05-0466, Coastal Oil & Gas Corp. … v. Garza Energy Trust, et al.”

This Week’s “We’re Taking It to the Supreme Court!” Case

“Coach Plans To Take Libel Suit to State Supreme Court”.

The dispute concerns a high school football rivalry. After a close game, the losing city’s sports editor had some unkind words about the other side’s coach:

Jacksonville High defensive coordinator Mark Zimmer said he was defamed when the sports editor of the Palestine Herald-Press wrote that the coach had made an “obscene gesture” after a hotly contested game against Palestine in 2006. In the column, sports editor Scott Tyler called Zimmer’s actions the worst display of sportsmanship he’d ever seen.

The court of appeals’s description was much less colorful:


Jacksonville’s postgame celebration was recorded by video cameras. Zimmer turned toward the Palestine sideline, raised his fists to the sides of his head and “abruptly thrust his arms downward to his hips three times while slightly bending his knees,” the ruling said. “Zimmer was yelling with elevated excitement as he motioned.”

Even so, the court of appeals ruled in favor of the newspaper. But perhaps we’ll eventually get to see the videotape to figure out what happened:

“We’re appealing, of course,” said Zimmer’s lawyer, Charles Clark. “We’re taking it to the supreme court to see if they will take a look at it.”