In re Citigroup Global Markets, No. 08-0289

The Texas Supreme Court today set an expedited argument in the Clear Channel merger case. The argument will be held this Friday in Austin. The order is here.

Recusal-watchers will note that both Chief Justice Jefferson and Justice Wainwright “are not sitting.” The real parties in interest in this case (those opposing the banks) are represented by the Chief’s former law partner. I’m not sure why Justice Wainwright might have stepped aside for this one. The order today reflects that Justice Alan Waldrop of the Third Court and Judge Randall W. Wilson of the 157th District Court in Harris County have been appointed to serve on the Court to hear this case.

It’s not clear that the argument will happen, however, unless this order disrupts the settlement talks reported by Reuters and the New York Times. The New York trial is set to begin this afternoon. It remains to be seen if the Texas Supreme Court’s action will change the bargaining posture of the parties.

The Texas Supreme Court briefs are available here.

Update: This article from Bloomberg News reports that there was also a state trial-court hearing today in San Antonio on the same dismissal motions that are the subject of this mandamus. So, there is a second front on which Friday’s mandamus argument could become moot if the trial court takes some action in the interim.

In re Nathan Macias, No. 08-0339

A few weeks ago, the blog had a brief note about the election case involving Representative Macias, who is contesting a loss in his party’s primary. At that time, he was challenging the assignment of a visiting judge and his lawyers were considering taking the matter up.

They did. Last Thursday, the Third Court denied Macias’s request for relief. And on Friday, a petition was filed in the Texas Supreme Court.

The trial is currently set for May 19th with a pretrial hearing a few days before that, so the Supreme Court can be expected to resolve this petition pretty quickly. The Court has already requested that a response be filed by tomorrow afternoon.

Background and more information: Herald-Zeitung

[Update: As noted on the Texas Appellate Law blog, the Third Court issued two orders on Friday, which together cancelled this argument and denied the emergency stay.]

As speculated here and elsewhere earlier, a petition for writ of mandamus was filed yesterday challenging the trial court’s handling of the initial hearing, and the Austin Court immediately scheduled the pending motion for temporary relief for oral argument next Wednesday at 2:00PM. The docket sheet is here. The Court’s order setting the expedited briefing and argument schedule is here. (( The order suggests that Wednesday’s oral argument will be about the stay motion, not the ultimate merits. In this context, however, I’m not sure there is much difference. ))

The newspaper quotes counsel for the relators (Robert Doggett of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid) as saying:

“Obviously, we’re disappointed with the court of appeals failure to act timely,” said Doggett, an attorney representing 48 mothers in the case. He said “having a hearing after the fact” was pointless.

While I’m sure he would have liked immediate relief, I would bet he’s pretty happy to get this response. Having an oral-argument scheduled so quickly is extraordinary.

Other coverage: Texas Appellate Law Blog :: Texas Rural Legal Aid Press Release

Although the Court didn’t issue its weekly order list last Friday, it certainly issued a large number of other orders that day. In addition to requesting full briefing in fifteen cases, the Court also made two new referrals to the State Bar’s (relatively) new pro bono program. Information about the two lucky cases follows the jump.
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Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., a case under the Federal Arbitration Act, holding 6-3 that parties cannot enforce provisions in an arbitration agreement that provided for additional (though still limited) judicial review of the arbitrator’s decision. Instead, regardless of the contract terms, the parties can only get the baseline level of judicial review provided by the statutory background. The FAA thus presents contracting parties with a binary choice: take arbitration under the statute or take normal civil litigation.

News of this case was generally (and unsurprisingly) buried in light of the much sexier Medellin v. Texas decision.

But the blogosphere that deals with civil litigation recognizes Hall Street as marking perhaps a key moment in the relationship between courts and the arbitration system.

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After trickling out just one briefing request on Wednesday [here] and another on Thursday [here], the Court quietly issued fifteen more briefing requests sometime on Good Friday. ((I had expected a silent weekend from the Court after Osler McCarthy’s distribution-list email that there would be no order list and the Court’s holiday schedule. Thanks to Roger Hughes of Adams & Graham for noticing some of these requests and prompting me to look again.))

The case of personal interest to the most Texas lawyers may be Abbott v. State Bar of Texas, No. 07-0836, from 03-06-00592-CV. COA Opinion. This is an open-records case about whether the information the State Bar maintains about its members is subject to disclosure and — if not — why not. The district court held that the information was confidential by nature. The court of appeals held that the information was “judicial” in nature because it was held pursuant to rules by the Supreme Court of Texas. The Attorney General’s petition (I am assuming) claims it is neither.

But the cases most likely to make the evening news (again) are definitely the two defamation cases out of Fort Worth, which fit together as a set. Both involve defamation suits brought by Gamal Abdel-Hafiz against television news networks and personalities (including Charlie Gibson and Bill O’Reilly). The allegations relate to news stories that named the plaintiff — an FBI agent who is Muslim — as having impeded some investigations prior to September 11, 2001 by, in the stories’ description, refusing to “wear a wire”. More details are to be found in the court of appeal’s opinions.

• 07-1073 Abdel-Hafiz v. ABC, Inc., from 02-06-00244-CV. COA Opinion

• 07-1074 Abdel-Hafiz v. Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., from 02-06-00353-CV. COA Opinion

The other dozen lucky cases moving to the next round of the appellate process follow the jump.

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Yesterday, the Court issued a stay in the Attorney General’s pending mandamus action about Texas’s child-support system. In re Office of the Attorney General, No. 08-0166 [previous coverage here]. At the same time, the Court also requested full briefing on the merits in the case.

Some say you’re supposed to try to jazz up your issues to interest the Court. Whatever the value of that advice, it’s not always true.

Yesterday, the Court requested briefing on the merits in In re Bendtsen, No. 07-0822, a wills-and-estates case out of the Dallas Court. [docket] ((At the same time, the Court also denied the petitioner’s motion for emergency stay.)) To my knowledge, this is the only briefing request to come out after this week’s conference.

The opinion of the Dallas Court is here.

The court of appeals extensively discussed a variety of waiver grounds. Along the way, it concluded that some of the filings made below fell outside the trial court’s plenary jurisdiction. And it concluded that still other arguments were waived by statements counsel made in the summary-judgment hearing and the appellate argument.

I haven’t seen the petition itself, so I don’t know which of those issues has been urged to the Court. But whichever were chosen, they seem to suit the Court’s recent attention to cases about the nuances of plenary jurisdiction and error preservation. And that’s enough to at least make it to the briefing-on-the-merits stage.