With today’s orders list, the Texas Supreme Court issued opinions in eight cases and set six more for the April argument calendar.

Among today’s cases were the TXI Transportation v. Hughes case about whether testimony about a defendant’s status as an illegal immigrant is harmful error (it is) and two cases about whether a medical-malpractice plaintiff in a so-called “sponge case” can raise an Open Courts challenge to get around time limits (yes to the two-year statute of limitations; no to the ten-year statute of repose). There was also a potentially tricky case for medical-malpractice plaintiffs about which discovery orders extend the 120-day expert-report deadline and which don’t. (You should hope you were very explicit.)

Those opinion summaries are on the way.

Here are the new cases the Court has accepted for its April argument calendar:

Cases set for argument April 14, 2010

• Railroad Commission of Texas v. Texas Citizens for a Safe Future and Clean Water and James G. Popp, No. 08?0497 (docket and briefs)

• Texas Mutual Insurance Co. v. Timothy J. Ruttiger, No. 08?0751 (docket and briefs)

• Italian Cowboy Partners, Ltd., Francesco Secchi and Jane Secchi v. The Prudential Insurance Co. and Four Partners, LLC, No. 08?0989 (docket and briefs)

Cases set for argument April 15, 2010

• TGS-Nopec Geophysical Co. d/b/a TGS-Nopec Corp. v. Susan Combs, Comptroller of Public Accounts and Greg Abbott, No. 08?1056 (docket and briefs)

• Liana Leordeanu v. American Protection Insurance Co., No. 09?0330 (docket and briefs)

• In re Rio Queen Citrus, Inc. and Elmore Stahl, Inc., No. 09-0491 (docket and briefs)

The Texas Supreme Court did not issue any opinions or grant any petitions for review with today’s orders list.

The Court is scheduled to meet for a full conference next Monday and Tuesday. The next oral argument sitting will begin on March 23, 2010.

The Texas Supreme Court did not issue any opinions with today’s orders list.

The big event next week is the primary election on Tuesday, March 2nd. See the “2010 Elections” page for links to our candidate Q&As, other news stories, and newspaper endorsements.

With today’s order list, the Texas Supreme Court issued merits opinions in four pending cases.

Adequacy of class representative

• Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Marketing on Hold, Inc., No. 05-0748 (docket and briefs). This is the very same case in which the class representative filed suit against the Justices of the Texas Supreme Court last week. Today, the Court decided, by a 5-3 vote, that the class representative did not adequately represent the interests of the class. The majority opinion was written by Justice Wainwright, joined by Justice Hecht, Justice Green, Justice Johnson, and Justice Willett. The dissenting opinion was written by Justice O’Neill, joined by Chief Justice Jefferson and Justice Medina. (Justice Guzman was not sitting on this case.)

Power of hearing examiner appointed to review a civil-service appeal

• City of Waco, Texas v. Larry Kelley, No. 07-0485 (docket and briefs). This appeal asked the Court to review a disciplinary case against a Waco police official that had already been appealed to a third-party hearing examiner. The Court ultimately concluded that parts of the hearing examiner’s decision exceeded its jurisdiction. Instead of rendering a partial judgment, the Court concluded that the proper remedy was to remand for a new hearing because it was not clear that severing just parts of the decision would accurately reflect the hearing examiner’s judgment. Justice Johnson wrote the opinion.

How long a city has to respond to a Public Information Act request

• City of Dallas v. Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, No. 07-0931 (docket and briefs). This was a case about when the clock begins for responding to a public information request. By a 6-2 vote, the Court decided that — if the government body asks for narrowing or clarification of the request — the 10-day clock begins when the party requesting public information responds, not the date of the original information request. The majority opinion was written by Justice O’Neill, joined by Chief Justice Jefferson, Justice Hecht, Justice Medina, Justice Green, and Justice Guzman. The dissenting opinion was written by Justice Wainwright, joined by Justice Johnson.

Forum-selection clause

• In re ADM Investor Services, Inc., No. 08-0570 (docket and briefs). The Court concluded that the trial court should have enforced a forum-selection clause that would require litigation to be conducted in Illinois. It rejected arguments that ADM had waived the clause by its own defensive conduct in the Texas court and also rejected arguments that ADM’s agent had waived the clause on ADM’s behalf through its own litigation conduct. Justice Green delivered the opinion. Justice Willett also wrote a concurring opinion, discussing in more detail the standards that should apply when a party asserts a “medical hardship” as a reason not to enforce a forum-selection clause.

With today’s order list, the Texas Supreme Court issued three per curiam decisions and granted review in six new cases that will be heard at oral argument in March.

The trend continues. There are still no dissenting or concurring opinions on the merits this term at the Texas Supreme Court. And another Justice notes her disagreement by a simple notation in the order list rather than penning a separate opinion.

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The Texas Supreme Court did not issue any opinions or grant any new cases for review in today’s order list.

The Court is scheduled to hold a two-day private conference next week, so there may be more to report next Friday.

This week’s orders list was not accompanied by any opinions or new grants.

With today’s order list, the Texas Supreme Court issued one per curiam opinion that was a routine application of a holding it made last year about preserving error in parental-termination cases.

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