The Court is hearing three oral arguments this morning. The issues include:

• whether cities have sovereign immunity against claims for back pay;
• whether someone who professionally installs a defective product is a “seller” that must be reimbursed by the manufacturer for their losses;

• when a party suing for breach of fiduciary duty can get disgorgement of the money they paid.

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The Court is hearing arguments this morning in three cases.

Does the Lottery Act prohibit selling your final two lottery payments?

Texas Lottery Commission v. First State Bank of DeQueen, et al., No. 08-0523 (more info)

This is a case I could write about all day. But that might be because I was counsel for the State in the court of appeals (before starting my own firm), and so I will refrain.

Emily Ramshaw wrote an article about the case on The Texas Tribune. (If you haven’t browsed around that website yet, you should.)

I also wrote a very brief overview in this earlier post noting the Court’s grant of review.

Does a permanent easement let the State haul away your dirt?

State of Texas v. Charles Lynn Brownlow, No. 08-0551 (more info)

Osler’s email sums up the main issue:

…whether the Department of Transportation’s permanent easement for a water-detention pond adjacent to a widened highway allows the state to excavate soil from the easement for highway work miles away.

The court of appeals concluded that the State did not have immunity against this suit because it did not own the land outright.

Prerequisites to suit for a workers-compensation retaliation claim

Travis Central Appraisal District v. Diane Lee Norman, No. 09-0100 (more info)

The case is about whether (and how) a public employee can sue for retaliatory discharge. Among other arguments, the appraisal district contends that the Texas Supreme Court should overrule City of LaPorte v. Barfield, 898 S.W.2d 288 (Tex. 1995), which held that governmental immunity was waived for those claims.

The Texas Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments this morning in three cases.

The questions include the permissible ratio of punitive-to-actual damages, what duty rule Texas should adopt for ice on commercial property, and whether an heir who discovers paternity years after an estate is closed can file suit to reopen the judgment.

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The Texas Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments this morning in three cases.

One of the cases is Severance v. Patterson, a certified question from a Fifth Circuit case attacking the constitutionality of the Texas Open Beaches Act. I blogged about the Fifth Circuit’s action (including its unusually scalding dissent from a certified question) here.

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Texas’s Solicitor General has just filed an amicus brief defending the constitutionality of Texas’s 10-year statute of repose for medical malpractice claims. (( A statute of limitations is different. Typically, a statute of limitations is not triggered until the plaintiff has some reason to know about their claim (the so-called “discovery rule”), and there are narrow situations where a statute of limitations can be “tolled” (excused) for a time, such as the when a plaintiff is a small child. A statute of repose begins immediately and typically does not have exceptions.

If you want to see for yourself, the statute in question is Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §74.251(b). ))

The case is Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio, Ltd. v. Emmanelene Rankin, No. 08-0316 (more info).

Chuck Lindell at the Statesman published a brief note yesterday about the Solicitor General’s brief and the background of the case. In a previous article, he also wrote about the oral arguments held before the Court in September.

This looks like an important case for both sides of the tort bar. All three amicus briefs filed so far support the hospital. (( The briefs from Texas Health Resources and from the Texas Alliance for Patient Access are online and are included on my docket tracking page for this case. The Solicitor General’s brief is not yet online. ))

There is a related case (argued the same day): Tangie Walters v. Cleveland Regional Medical Center, Shirley Kiefer, and Keith Spooner, M.D., No. 08-0619 (more info). No amicus briefs have been filed in that case.

The Texas Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments this morning in three cases.

Who (if anyone) has standing to sue a city to enforce a referendum?

Carroll Robinson, et al. v. Bill White, City of Houston and Houston City Council, et al., No. 08-0658 (more info)

Here is the preview sent out by Osler McCarthy, the Court’s public information officer: (( As the Court makes clear in many contexts, Osler’s summaries are provided for public information “and reflect his judgment alone on facts and legal issues and in no way represent the Court’s opinion about case merits.” ))

The principal issues are (1) whether proponents who drafted and campaigned for a proposition and voted for it have standing to sue to declare it effective and, if so, (2) whether a “poison pill” provision associated with a competing proposition violates state law. In this case Robinson drafted and promoted Proposition 2, for a city revenue cap, which Houston voters approved in 2004 but by a smaller margin than a proposition for a property-tax revenue cap on the same ballot. The City Council refused to adopt Proposition 2 because of a provision associated with Prop 1, that among inconsistent propositions the proposition approved by most voters would prevail, and because of a similar City Charter provision. The trial court granted summary judgment to Robinson and the other Prop 2 organizers, but the court of appeals reversed and dismissed their claims, holding the organizers did not have standing.

When must a trial court grant an extension to fix a defective expert report in a medical-malpractice case?

Eberhard Samlowski, M.D. v. Carol Wooten, No. 08-0667 (more info)

Osler’s preview of the issues:

The principal issue is whether a trial court must grant a 30-day extension to cure a deficient but arguably curable expert report in a medical-malpractice suit. In this case the trial court dismissed the suit with prejudice – barring refiling the suit – because the expert report did not adequately show how the alleged negligence proximately caused Wooten’s injuries. Wooten alleged Samlowski’s initial inaccurate diagnosis led to a second surgery and complications. The court determined the report was not a good-faith effort to comply with the expert-report requirement. The appeals court reversed to allow an extension to cure the report, holding that the expert report was not a good-faith effort but was a good-faith attempt to comply with the report requirement.

When does Texas have personal jurisdiction over corporate officers?

Dan Kelly and Laura Hofstatter v. General Interior Construction Inc., No. 08-0669 (more info)

Osler’s preview of the issues:

In this jurisdictional challenge the principal issues are (1) whether Texas contacts to establish personal jurisdiction should be limited to pleadings that did not allege a disputed contract was a contact for a fraud claim or for Texas Trust Fund Act violations by the officers individually and (2) whether asserting jurisdiction over the corporate officers complies with federal due process and the Texas long-arm statute. In this case General Interior Construction, a Texas company, sued Kelly and Hofstatter over alleged payments due from Kelly and Hofstatter’s general-contracting business incorporated in Arizona. Their company agreed with another Arizona firm for improvements to a Texas hotel the other firm owned. GIC alleged breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of trust money Kelly and Hofstatter’s firm held for paying subcontractors. The trial court found specific jurisdiction existed to require Kelly and Hofstatter to defend in Texas against all claims, but the court of appeals reversed on the contract-breach claim, based on Kelly and Hofstatter’s signing the contract as corporate officers.

NAFTA Traders, Inc. v. Margaret A. Quinn, No. 08-0613 (docket info)

Today, the Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about a critical case for arbitration agreements under Texas law.

At stake is whether the same constraints that the U.S. Supreme Court placed on arbitration agreements in its controversial Hall Street decision will also apply to arbitration agreements under the Texas Arbitration Act.

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This morning, the US Supreme Court has asked for the views of the Texas Solicitor General about a pending petition. At least in my memory, that’s a first.

The case is Rhine v. Deaton (08-1596), which I blogged about earlier today. My earlier post includes links that will take you to the Texas Supreme Court briefing and Texas court of appeals opinions.

I would write a little more about this now, but I’m writing from the passenger seat of a car in the mountains of West Virginia.

See also: SCOTUSblog’s first note this morning about the order.