Although the Court did not issue any opinions today, there are some other interesting things in the order list.

In Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Laura Schubert, No. 05-0916, the Court’s high-profile case about whether the First Amendment bars a church member’s claim for emotional damages, the Court this week denied what the order list describes as an “unopposed motion to stay issuance of mandate.”

What’s the significance of that? A party sometimes asks a lower court to stay its mandate while it prepares a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. That is particularly important in cases that involve equitable relief because those cases might otherwise become moot. But since Pleasant Grove is a case about money damages, it doesn’t seem to me that the issuance of the mandate should affect any certiorari petition.

As for pending cases, there were two different cases set for oral argument on October 15th in which the parties filed motions to reset oral argument to a later date. One of those motions was unopposed; the other was opposed. Both were denied.

I’m sure that the movants had reasons for seeking to move the argument date, but the Court’s response may be a signal that it intends to keep its calendar once set.

There were no opinions issued or cases set for argument with this week’s order list.

It looks like a typical week on the conveyor belt, with cases rolling off that the Justices did not hold for conference.

The fiscal-year-end orders came out today. It looks as if the Court staff was up very late dotting “i”s and crossing “t”s — the version of the order list up today even still has a notation at the top warning “DRAFT ONLY – NOT FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION.”. This is a page linking to the opinions themselves.

The Court decided 18 cases with opinions today. (( There are other numbers floating around, but I’m breaking it down a little differently. )) That’s an indigestibly large number for me to summarize tonight without ruining my dinner. So I’ll focus on the other aspects of the order list.

The Court granted two motions for rehearing today, issuing a new opinion in one of them.

• Guitar Holding Co, L.P. v. Hudspeth County Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, No. 06‑0904. The Court withdrew its judgment of March 30th and issued a new judgment and a supplemental per curiam opinion.

• Grant Thornton LLP v. Prospect High Income Fund, ML CBO IV (Cayman) Ltd., No. 06‑0975. The Court granted rehearing in this petition and added the cause to its oral argument docket in December.

In addition to Grant Thornton, the Court added six other cases to its argument calendar for the fall — it granted four petitions for review, set argument in one mandamus, and set argument in one habeas corpus. (( Seeing a habeas on the docket is standard fare in many appellate courts, but because the Texas Supreme Court handles only civil matters, it’s somewhat rare here. ))

• In re Gayle E. Coppock, No. 08‑0093, from the Fort Worth Court. This habeas corpus is set for argument on December 10, 2008.

• Mann Frankfort Stein & Lipp Advisors, Inc. v. Brendan J. Fielding, No. 07‑0490, from the First Court of Appeals. This petition is set for argument on November 13, 2008.

• Harrell v. State of Texas, No. 07‑0806, from the Amarillo Court. This petition is set for argument on November 13, 2008.

• Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld L.L.P. v. National Development & Research Corp., No. 07‑0818, from the Dallas Court. This petition is set for argument on December 9, 2008.

• In re J.O.A., et al., No. 08‑0379, from the Amarillo Court. This petition is set for argument on October 14, 2008.

• In re United Services Automobile Association, No. 07‑0871, from the San Antonio Court. This mandamus petition is set for argument on December 9, 2008.

The order list also indicates that the Court’s October 16, 2008 sitting is at Southern Methodist University School of Law in Dallas. (The previous two days, the Court will hear arguments in Austin.)

The Court also assigned argument dates to the other cases in which it had granted review over the past few months, including setting a new argument date for the rehearing in Entergy Gulf States v. Summers, No. 05‑0272. The argument is among those that will be held at SMU.

I’ve cleaned up the count below to address Todd’s comment. However you slice this pie, there is plenty to go around. The lesson may be that the statistics we use to track the Court can be very arbitrary.

I’ve counted 18 cases decided. The Court’s public information officer counts 20. A simple count of the cases listed on the opinions page shows 22. The underlying order list shows 23 cases with at least one opinion issued. What accounts for these differences?

In addition to the 18 that I counted:

The Court issued a per curiam clarifying that its denial of review in In re G.B., No. 08‑0380, did not suggest any particular view about the constitutionality of Texas Family Code § 263.405(i). That hardly seems like an opinion on the merits to me.

And, as mentioned above, the Court issued a supplemental per curiam on rehearing in Guitar Holding Company. Whether you count that as a newly decided case is up to you.

In addition, there were two cases today in which the Court denied rehearing but still issued corrected opinions. That happened in In re McAllen Medical center, Inc., No. 05-0892. Unfortunately for court watchers, it was a correction to the majority opinion, not any creative additions to the dissent. It also happened in First American Title Insurance Co. v. Combs, No. 05‑0541, but I don’t see a link to that opinion. (In some past cases, the Court has not posted the new opinion when the changes are sufficiently minor.) I don’t count those toward my count of newly decided cases.

And the Court issued an opinion explaining its decision to abate a mandamus action in which the underlying officeholder had changed while the case was being considered. In re Baylor Medical Center at Garland, No. 06‑0491. That decision was controversial enough to draw a dissent from Justice Johnson, so perhaps it does deserve to appear in the count of substantive opinions even though the outcome is that the case simply moves off the Court’s active docket, perhaps to return later.

Even by my conservative count, today saw 18 new cases decided and 7 new cases set for argument. A very productive day, right up there with the mysteriously productive March 28, 2008, on which the Court decided 19 cases on the merits. (( That count was also a little uncertain. On that day in March, the Court also issued an opinion in a 20th case — a per curiam explaining its dismissal of a pending petition as having been improvidently granted. ))

I’ll have other posts next week breaking down today’s order list statistically. Among the highlights, the Court cleaned out its very oldest pending petition from its “submarine docket” (State of Texas v. Brown, No. 05‑0236) as well as its oldest pending argued and submitted case (Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas, Inc. v. Hogue, No. 04-0575). (( That category excludes abated cases. There’s actually one much, much older abated case. )) The Court seems to have made a really strong push to get its oldest cases out the door.

This week, the Court met for a long conference after its summer break. Yet the Court released a relatively quiet order list. A very short list of petition and rehearing denials, no opinions, no new grants, and no calendar settings for future oral arguments. It looks as if the Court was saving its pending petitions for a later conference, instead spending this week discussing and finalizing opinions.

Next week is the last chance for decisions to be issued this fiscal year (which is the calendar used by the Office of Court Administration to track court efficiency). It will be a surprise if the Court doesn’t issue a significant number of opinions.

I’ll have a post or two next week about some of the Court’s longest-pending cases.

The Court has issued its last order list of the summer recess.

This order list does not contain any grants or opinions. It has a fairly typical number of petition denials (nine), suggesting that these were petitions that no Justice singled out to discuss at conference.

Today the Court released its argument calendar for a sitting on September 9th, 10th, and 11th. (Here’s the order list.)

The Court seems to have largely followed its practice of assigning cases to argument dates based on the order in which they were granted. (( More argument settings should be coming soon. I would expect the other pending “Granted” cases to be assigned argument dates after the Court returns next week. )) (Tanner v. Nationwide Mutual, No. 07-0760, was granted in March, but it’s not on this list.) If the Court holds to form, the arguments on each day should start at 9:00 a.m. with the lowest docket number and work their way up.

Tuesday, September 9th

S. Murthy Badiga, M.D. v. Maricruz Lopez, No. 05‑0801

Dynegy Midstream Services, L.P. and Versado Gas Processors, LLC v. Apache Corp., No. 07‑0043

In re Labatt Food Service. L.P., No. 07‑0419

Wednesday, September 10th

City of Pasadena, Texas v. Richard Smith, No. 06‑0948

John Christopher Franka, M.D. and Nagakrishna Reddy, M.D. v. Stacey Velasquez and Saragosa Alaniz, Both Individually and as Next Friends of Their Minor Child, Saragosa Mario Alaniz, No. 07‑0131

Paul H. Smith, et al. v. Thomas O’Donnell, Executor of the Estate of Corwin Denney, No. 07‑0697

Thursday, September 11th

Retamco Operating, Inc. v. Republic Drilling Co., No. 07‑0599

Irving W. Marks v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, No. 07‑0783

Spectrum Healthcare Resources, Inc. and Michael Sims v. Janice McDaniel and Patrick McDaniel, No. 07‑0787

Today’s order list did not contain any opinions, grants of review, or other unusual orders.

Next week is the last week before the Court returns from its summer recess. There should be plenty of work to be done when it returns — in addition to the normal burst of activity before the end of the fiscal year, the Texas Supreme Court has already granted enough arguments to fill two full oral argument sittings (of three days each) and part of a third sitting.

I would expect the Court to issue its Fall argument calendar in short order, and sometime in the next week I will post a few thoughts about the unusual challenges of preparing for argument in the Texas Supreme Court.

Continuing its summer slow period, today’s Texas Supreme Court order list contained just a handful of petition denials and denials of motions for rehearing.

(The blog also seems to have had a summer slow period. The pace here should increase over the next week or two.)