Well, you don’t see this caption every day: Brumbaugh v. Justice John Roberts, et al., No. 10-0314. The “et alia” includes eight other Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Justice Sotomayor is off the hook; this plaintiff’s suit still names Justice Souter.)

According to the court of appeals:

Brumbaugh requested that the trial court declare certain Supreme Court rulings unconstitutional and restore civil liberties, stop or fix the drug war, outlaw all mind control technology, declare martial law unlawful, and collect $10,000 from each justice for dereliction of duty and fraud.

The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the case, and Brumbaugh has just filed his petition for review with the Texas Supreme Court. (There doesn’t appear to be any online version of the petition; self-represented litigants are not required to file electronic courtesy copies.)

Yesterday, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit certified a question of Texas insurance law to the Texas Supreme Court. If the Texas Supreme Court accepts the certified question, it will order merits briefing and (most likely) set the case for argument under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 58.7.

The en banc panel’s opinion was released in this PDF. The original split decision of a three-judge panel (which is now partially superseded) was published at Ojo v. Farmers Group, Inc., 565 F.3d 1175 (9th Cir. 2009).

The central issue is whether an allegedly discriminatory provision of a homeowners insurance policy can be challenged under the federal Fair Housing Act or, instead, is “reverse-preempted” by conflicting state law under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. (( The McCarran-Ferguson Act is the looking glass through which we view insurance regulation. Most famously, it creates special exceptions to antitrust laws for insurers. It also gives state legislatures the first crack at regulating insurers. Congress can specifically state its intention to have a federal statute override conflicting state regulations. But if it does not, then the general principle is that state laws — unlike almost any other field of law — trump any conflicting federal statute. If you’re following along, you’ll see that this “reverse preemption” is itself just an expression of Congress’s intent. ))

The en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit determined that, absent a conflicting state law, the FHA would indeed prohibit a discriminatory provision in a homeowners insurance policy. But to take its next step — which would involve construing Texas law — the panel decided to formally certify the question.

Having resolved these issues, in a separate order filed concurrently with this opinion we certify to the Supreme Court of Texas the dispositive question of whether Texas law permits an insurance company to price insurance by using credit-score factors that have a racially disparate impact that, were it not for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, would violate the FHA.

The “separate order” was not posted on the Ninth Circuit’s website, so that’s all I know (so far) about how the question was framed.

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In its big orders list last August, the Texas Supreme Court decided Marks v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, No. 07-0783 (docket and briefs) a case about the reach of Texas’s medical-malpractice statute.

The question was framed whether an injury caused by a defective hospital bed was covered by that statute or whether, instead, it was a question of premises liability. I wrote about the case in this previous blog post.

Divided 5-4, the Texas Supreme Court held that this narrow claim was not covered by the medical-malpractice statute and thus the plaintiff was exempted from the added requirements (such as the ever-popular expert report requirement).

Justice Medina wrote for the five-vote majority. Four Justices joined three dissents. Chief Justice Jefferson also wrote a concurrence.

Justice Brister, who is no longer on the Court, was a member of the five-Justice majority.

The Court’s order today does not set the case for re-argument; all it does is extend the Court’s time to act beyond the 180-day limit on motions for rehearing that I have written about in the past.

Zinc Nacional, S.A. v. Bouché Trucking, Inc., No. 09-0734 (per curiam) (docket and briefs)

This case turned on a subtle but important distinction in personal jurisdiction.

Here, Zinc is a Mexican manufacturing company that ships paper to New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida for reprocessing. Along the way, these goods were carried by Bouché Trucking, a Texas corporation that had been subcontracted to carry the merchandise.

In transport, one of the trucks rolled over, injuring its driver. He sued his employer, Bouché, who in turn sued Zinc.

The court of appeals looked (in part) to whether Zinc had other customers in Texas when determining whether Texas courts could exercise specific personal jurisdiction over this claim.

The Texas Supreme Court rejected that reliance on contacts that were “unrelated to the accident in this case.”

Although Zinc does have three or four customers for its other products in Texas, and does receive some raw materials from Texas, these facts are unrelated to the accident in this case and are thus irrelevant to the question of specific jurisdiction. However, they may have some bearing on the existence of general jurisdiction, an issue the court of appeals did not consider.

East Texas Salt Water Disposal Co. v. Richard Leon Werline, No. 07-0135 (Tex. Mar. 12, 2010) (docket and briefs)

Divided 6-3, the Texas Supreme Court held that the Texas Arbitration Act

… allows an appeal from a trial court’s order that denies confirmation of an arbitration award and instead, vacates the award and directs that the dispute be arbitrated anew.

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Texas Department of Insurance v. Reconveyance Services, Inc., No. 07-0786 (Tex. Mar. 12, 2010) (per curiam) (docket and briefs)

Reconveyance Services brought suit seeking a declaration that a fee imposed by TDI was outside the scope of Texas law. The court of appeals concluded that this claim against the state was within the trial court’s jurisdiction. The Texas Supreme Court held that it was not properly framed and ordered it dismissed.

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TXI Transportation Co. v. Randy Hughes, No. 07-0541 (docket and briefs)

The Texas Supreme Court reversed a jury verdict about an auto accident that was based, in part, on testimony that one driver was an illegal immigrant. The Court concluded that the driver’s immigration status was not relevant to the claims at issue and that its admission risked harmful prejudice.

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Spectrum Healthcare Resources, Inc. and Michael Sims v. Janice McDaniel and Patrick McDaniel, No. 07-0787 (Tex. Mar. 12, 2010) (docket and briefs)

With today’s case, the answer is that “an agreed docket control order must explicitly reference section 74.351 threshold expert reports if the order is to constitute an agreement to extend that deadline.”

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