Edward Charles Prado

This case concerned whether the Texas Democratic Party's method of allocating delegates to its state nominating convention under the 'Texas two-step' system required preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Plaintiffs, including LULAC of Texas and individual voters, alleged that the formula, which used raw vote totals from a prior gubernatorial election, could disadvantage Latino-majority districts. The court denied the Party's motion for summary judgment, ruling that Section 5 applies to the delegate allocation changes. The core reasoning followed Supreme Court precedent in Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia, holding that such party procedures implemented under state authority constitute covered changes that must be precleared for potential discriminatory effects, regardless of whether actual discrimination is shown in this proceeding.

electionscivil rights

In this case, Texas Taco Cabana and T.C. Management sought a declaratory judgment that Taco Cabana of New Mexico had no rights to develop additional restaurants or rights of first refusal in New Mexico under a 1994 Development Agreement that had expired or been superseded, along with claims of breach of a License Agreement. The defendants counterclaimed with allegations of violations of the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act and Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, breach of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and tortious interference with contract. The court addressed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the counterclaims, resolving procedural objections about timeliness and applying Texas choice-of-law rules to determine that Texas law governed the dispute. The court granted the motion in part by dismissing the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act claims and the tortious interference claims against Carrols as to contracts between specific parties, while denying dismissal of the other claims.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

In Dunbar v. Barnhart, the plaintiff sought judicial review of the Social Security Administration Commissioner's denial of disability benefits, asserting inability to work since 1999 due to a left hand impairment and possible cardiac issues. The district court accepted the magistrate judge's recommendation and affirmed the Commissioner's determination that the plaintiff was not disabled. The court concluded that the decision was supported by substantial evidence in the record, that precedent such as Watson v. Barnhart did not require an explicit finding on the ability to maintain employment in every case, and that medical testimony showed no disabling cardiac condition.

labor & employmentfederal power

This case concerned the United States' effort to recover unpaid federal income taxes, penalties, and interest owed by the deceased Roosevelt Dickerson for tax years 1987 through 1990, including enforcement of tax liens on his real property at 10488 Lambda Drive in El Paso, Texas. After Dickerson's death, his sole heir and executor John Tate distributed the property by selling it via contract for deed, and the United States sought a deficiency judgment holding Tate personally liable under 31 U.S.C. § 3713 for the remaining unpaid debt. The court granted in part and denied in part the United States' motion for summary judgment, finding Tate personally liable to the extent of the lesser of the distribution value or the government debt because the estate was insolvent, he had notice of the tax claims, and he distributed assets before satisfying the government's priority claim under the statute; the exact amount of liability was referred to a magistrate judge for further proceedings. The ruling relied on Tate's failure to respond to requests for admission establishing the statutory elements and on precedents interpreting the priority statute's application to estate distributions.

taxespropertyprocedure

Southwestern Bell Telephone Company sued the City of El Paso and El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief regarding a proposed city ordinance imposing fees on gross revenues and District procedures and charges for telephone lines crossing irrigation ditches and canals, claiming violations of the Federal Telecommunications Act and Texas Public Utility Regulatory Act along with related state statutes. After the City settled its claims, the remaining dispute involved cross-motions for summary judgment and the District's counterclaim alleging trespass or uncompensated taking of property. The court granted Southwestern Bell's motion for summary judgment, denied the District's motion, and dismissed the trespass counterclaim, holding that Texas law authorized the utility's crossings within public rights-of-way without additional fees or permission from the District.

business & regulatoryproperty

This case involved an appeal by the San Antonio Express-News and an editor from a bankruptcy court's order permitting Mexican investors in cross-border insolvency proceedings to file claims and notices using account numbers instead of names, and sealing a portion of a related evidentiary hearing, based on fears of kidnapping and violence in Mexico. The district court reversed the bankruptcy court's decision and vacated the confidentiality order in full. The court found that the investors' evidence, including testimony, travel warnings, and news articles about crime rates, was insufficient to rebut the strong presumption of public access to court records under the First Amendment and common law. It noted that Bankruptcy Rules 2019 and 3001 require disclosure of names, and no adequate showing of good cause justified the protective measures.

free speechprocedurecivil rights

This case involved a former PetsMart employee, D’Ann Childress, who sued the company under Title VII and state law for sexual harassment and discrimination by her supervisor, as well as various tort claims including intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent supervision. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, dismissing all claims. The court reasoned that the alleged harassment did not result in a tangible employment action against the plaintiff, her discrimination and retaliation claims were either not properly raised with the EEOC or lacked merit, and the tort claims were either barred by the statute of limitations or unsupported by evidence.

labor & employmentcivil rightstorts & liabilityprocedure

This case concerns H.E. Butt Grocery Co.'s federal income tax returns for fiscal years 1991 and 1992, specifically deductions for costs related to investigating expansion into Mexico, additional depreciation deductions under the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System for certain assets, and eligibility for the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit for wages paid to employees whose certifications were pending when program funding ended. On reconsideration of its prior partial summary judgment ruling, the court granted HEB partial summary judgment on some of the depreciation deductions attributable to data errors but declined to alter its ruling on the remaining depreciation items, which involved an impermissible change in accounting method without the Commissioner's consent. The court withdrew summary judgment for the United States on the tax credit issue, allowing HEB's claim to proceed to trial if it can prove employee eligibility, and granted the motion to amend the complaint while denying the addition of one expert witness.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

In this case, former limited partners sued USAA entities and American Industrial Properties REIT (AIP) alleging material misrepresentations and omissions in proxy materials for a 1998 roll-up merger of four partnerships into AIP, along with breach of fiduciary duty by the general partners. The plaintiffs sought damages, equitable relief, and an accounting. The court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment and dismissed the case, finding that the plaintiffs could not establish damages—an essential element of both their securities claims under 15 U.S.C. § 78n(a) and their fiduciary duty claims—after the plaintiffs' proposed blockage and aggregation theories lacked supporting evidence in the record. The court reaffirmed the plaintiffs' standing as former limited partners but limited its analysis to the damages issue.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case concerned whether Texas's use of the TAAS exam as a high school graduation requirement violated the Due Process Clause or 34 C.F.R. § 100.3 (a Title VI regulation) by having an impermissible disparate impact on minority students. The court decided that the TAAS requirement did not create an impermissible adverse impact on minority students and did not violate due process. The core reasoning was that courts must defer to state educational policy choices, the test measured material actually taught in schools rather than perpetuating prior discrimination, minority pass rates were improving, and the evidence did not show a violation under precedents such as Debra P. v. Turlington.

civil rights

The case involved Paula Carson suing Metropolitan Life Insurance (MetLife) for denial of accidental death benefits under her late husband's employer-sponsored life insurance policy. Her husband died after complications from a Rapid Opiate Detoxification procedure to treat his methadone addiction, including vomiting, aspiration, and eventual removal from life support. MetLife paid basic life insurance benefits but denied the accidental death claim, determining that the death resulted from illness or treatment for a mental or physical condition rather than an accident. The court granted MetLife's motion for summary judgment, holding that the claims administrator's decision was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence from medical records, applying an abuse of discretion standard, and finding no material factual disputes that would alter the outcome.

business & regulatoryhealthcare

In Rothe Development Corp. v. United States Department of Defense, a San Antonio company sued after losing a DoD contract for operating a network control center at an Air Force base because a statutory 10% price-evaluation preference was applied to favor bids from socially and economically disadvantaged businesses (SDBs), which include a presumption for certain minority-owned firms under the 1207 program (10 U.S.C. § 2323). Rothe, the low bidder, claimed the preference violated its Fifth Amendment equal protection rights by discriminating on the basis of race and ethnicity. The court granted the government's motion for summary judgment, holding that the program survived strict scrutiny as required by Adarand v. Pena because Congress had a compelling interest in remedying identified discrimination in federal contracting and the preference was narrowly tailored through mechanisms like rebuttable presumptions, net-worth limits, and a five-percent goal. The decision rested on legislative history, studies, and evidence of past discrimination supporting the need for remedial action, while rejecting geographic or industry-specific findings as impractical.

civil rightsfederal powerbusiness & regulatory

This case involved a bankruptcy trustee suing former management consultants and accountants for negligence and malpractice in connection with services provided during a company's Chapter 11 reorganization. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the claims were barred by res judicata because they should have been raised during the prior fee application proceedings. The bankruptcy court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, and the district court affirmed on appeal. The court reasoned that the claims could have been effectively litigated in the context of the fee hearing, as the court could have initiated an adversary proceeding if objections based on malpractice were raised, and pursuing the claims later would be inconsistent with the prior approval of fees.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

Plaintiff Tom Thompson, a Texas resident, sued California-based Handa-Lopez, Inc., operator of an online casino called Funscape’s Casino Royale, alleging breach of contract, fraud, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act after the defendant refused to pay him approximately $193,728 for winnings from games played on its website. The defendant moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue or, alternatively, to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, citing a forum-selection and arbitration clause in its online contract and the burden of litigating in Texas. The court denied the motion in full, holding that the defendant’s interactive website, which was continuously accessible in Texas and through which the plaintiff entered into a contract, established sufficient minimum contacts for specific personal jurisdiction under due process standards. It further found that the buried forum-selection clause did not compel transfer, that venue was proper in Texas, and that the balance of conveniences did not favor moving the case to California.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

Petitioner George Cordova filed this federal habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his Texas capital murder conviction and death sentence arising from a 1979 stabbing and robbery. He raised multiple claims including ineffective assistance of counsel at both phases of trial, erroneous jury instructions, violation of the proportionality requirement, withholding of exculpatory evidence, legally insufficient evidence on a special sentencing issue, and cumulative error. Because the petition was filed before the effective date of AEDPA, the court conducted de novo review of each claim; after examining the state-court record, trial counsel testimony, and applicable law, the court concluded that none of the claims had merit and therefore denied the petition while vacating the prior stay of execution.

criminal lawprocedure

In Hicks v. Brysch, a Texas prisoner sued a state district clerk in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after the clerk rejected multiple attempts to file a state civil lawsuit for failing to meet the financial disclosure and litigation-history affidavit requirements of Chapter 14 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code; the plaintiff sought mandamus, injunctive relief, and damages. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the claims with prejudice. The core reasoning was that the plaintiff's submissions never satisfied the statutory prerequisites for filing by prisoners, the federal court lacked authority to issue the requested mandamus, the plaintiff had not paid the required partial filing fee under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and the claims were therefore frivolous and malicious.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

Plaintiff Ronald James Hicks filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. Sections 1981, 1983, 1985, and 1986 against Bexar County, two San Antonio Municipal Court judges, a police officer, the City of San Antonio, and members of the Bexar County Commissioner's Court. The suit alleged that the defendants violated his constitutional rights through improper handling of multiple traffic citations, including failures to follow state magistrate procedures, denial of examining trials, improper imposition of fines, and related conspiracies. The court granted summary judgment to all defendants and dismissed the claims with prejudice, holding that the municipal judges were protected by absolute judicial immunity, the county and other officials had no liability under the facts alleged, and no valid constitutional claims existed. The court further directed the defendants to submit proof of attorneys' fees for potential sanctions under Rule 11 due to the lawsuit's lack of merit.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

In this product liability case, the plaintiff alleged that her 1977 Heyer-Schulte breast implants caused her to develop Sjogren’s Syndrome and sought to prove both general and specific causation through the expert testimony of epidemiologist Dr. Shanna Swan and rheumatologist Dr. Luis Espinoza. The defendants moved to exclude the experts’ testimony under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. as lacking sufficient reliability and also moved for judgment as a matter of law. The court granted the motion to exclude, finding that the experts’ methodologies failed to meet Daubert’s standards of testability, peer review, error rates, and general acceptance in the scientific community, and that their opinions on causation were not adequately grounded in reliable data or literature. Because the plaintiff could not establish specific causation without this testimony, the court granted in part the motion for judgment as a matter of law.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned a photographer's claim that he was a joint author of the fourth edition of a medical textbook published by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, based on photographs he contributed, and that he was therefore entitled to half the profits from later editions that reused some of those photos. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment and denied the plaintiff's cross-motion. It held that the Copyright Act's definition of a joint work requires evidence of the parties' intent to be co-authors of a unitary whole, and the record showed no such intent because the photographer was hired and paid for specific contributions under the defendant's direction without any indication of shared authorship. The court found the evidence insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact on the intent element.

propertyprocedure

The case involved a shopping mall landlord's appeal of a bankruptcy court order denying its request for administrative expense priority for unpaid post-petition rent owed by a Chapter 11 debtor tenant under a nonresidential lease that the debtor had moved to reject. The district court reversed, holding that Bankruptcy Code section 365(d)(3) requires the debtor to timely perform all lease obligations until rejection and grants the resulting rent claims administrative priority status without the need to prove that the expenses conferred an actual benefit on the estate under section 503(b)(1)(A). The court adopted the majority interpretation of the statute's plain language, which expressly overrides the benefit requirement of section 503(b), and remanded for further proceedings to award the priority claim.

business & regulatorypropertyprocedure