Randy Crane

The case involved two doctors suing their landlord Dr. Pechero, his real estate agent Chrysler, reporter Treviño, and a television station for alleged schemes to extort patient referrals and payments through threats, double rent demands, eviction, and defamatory news coverage, asserting violations of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts, Hobbs Act, RICO, and related state claims. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss the antitrust claims for failure to allege specific facts showing restraint of trade or monopolization, and dismissed the Hobbs Act claim because it does not confer a private right of action. It denied dismissal of the RICO claim against Pechero and Chrysler, finding that predicate acts of extortion had been sufficiently pleaded to survive the motion, and retained supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatorypropertyprocedure

In this case, Cash America Advance, Inc. appealed a bankruptcy court's judgment awarding debtor Jose G. Prado $3,255 plus interest after Cash America sold pawned merchandise following Prado's Chapter 13 filing. Prado had pledged items like jewelry and instruments as loan collateral, repeatedly extended grace periods on the pawn tickets, and stopped payments after filing bankruptcy on November 1, 2001; Cash America then secured and later sold some unredeemed items. The district court reviewed the bankruptcy court's conclusions of law de novo and affirmed, holding that the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) barred Cash America from forfeiting the merchandise under Texas pawn law, which requires affirmative action by the pawnbroker to end the debtor's redemption rights. The court reasoned that without such forfeiture, Prado retained an indefinite right to redeem the property, which the stay protected.

business & regulatorypropertyprocedure

In Wyttenbach v. Commissioner, a pro se debtor appealed a bankruptcy court order that struck his chapter 7 petition and retroactively annulled the automatic stay. The debtor had filed the petition on the same day his condominium was foreclosed upon but failed to obtain the credit counseling required by 11 U.S.C. § 109(h)(1) in the 180 days before filing, and he had a prior bankruptcy case dismissed with prejudice. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's order, holding that the debtor was ineligible to be a debtor under the plain language of the statute regardless of whether the petition was filed as a "man" or a "trust," and that striking the petition and annulling the stay was a permissible remedy for noncompliance with the credit counseling requirement.

procedure

The case concerned a Texas resident who sued two nonresident corporate defendants for negligence and unseaworthiness under the Jones Act and general maritime law after sustaining alleged injuries while working aboard an unfinished ship in 2005. The defendants removed the action to federal court on diversity grounds, and the court denied remand after determining that the Jones Act claim had been fraudulently pled because the plaintiff could not qualify as a seaman. The defendants then moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction; the plaintiff conceded the absence of specific jurisdiction, and the court concluded that the defendants' contacts with Texas were too limited to support general jurisdiction under the Due Process Clause. Accordingly, the court granted both motions to dismiss.

proceduretorts & liability

In this employment discrimination case, plaintiff Robert Maheshwari sued the University of Texas-Pan American in Texas state court under Chapter 21 of the Texas Labor Code, alleging unlawful practices based on national origin and disability; his amended petition referenced filing charges with the EEOC and seeking damages under Title VII and the ADA but framed the action solely under state law. Defendant removed the case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 after receiving plaintiff's interrogatory answers that explicitly identified the federal statutes, and plaintiff moved to remand arguing the removal was untimely because the amended petition had already disclosed federal claims. The district court denied the motion to remand, holding that the pleadings did not affirmatively present a federal question on their face under the well-pleaded complaint rule and that the interrogatory responses constituted the first “other paper” from which removability could be ascertained, making the removal timely under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b).

civil rightsprocedurelabor & employment

In this case, a Texas resident and migrant farmworker sued a Louisiana cotton gin operator and its manager under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (AWPA) for multiple alleged violations, including failures to provide written disclosures during recruitment in Texas, inadequate pay statements, unsafe housing and transportation, and other statutory requirements. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue or, alternatively, to transfer the case to the Western District of Louisiana under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), arguing that all relevant events and witnesses were in Louisiana. The court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that the alleged recruitment activities by the defendants' agent in Texas established sufficient minimum contacts for personal jurisdiction and that venue was proper under AWPA provisions. It also denied the transfer motion after weighing factors such as the location of events, convenience of parties and witnesses, and the plaintiff's choice of forum, concluding that the defendants had not shown the balance of convenience and justice favored transfer. The ruling emphasized that AWPA allows venue in any district with jurisdiction over the parties and gave weight to the plaintiff's forum selection.

labor & employmentprocedure

This case involved homeowners who sued their insurer, Allstate, for breach of contract, bad faith, and statutory violations after the company allegedly failed to fully investigate and pay claims for water and mold damage to their home under a Texas HO-B homeowner's policy. The parties disputed the scope of the policy's mold exclusion, whether mold damage ensuing from covered water events was covered, the effect of notice and repair requirements, and whether an exception under personal property coverage could extend to dwelling coverage. Following its prior ruling in a related case, the court rejected arguments that the policy barred all mold claims or that the exclusion was ambiguous in a way that expanded coverage. It granted summary judgment to the insurer on mold claims from HVAC and shower pan leaks due to failure to provide prompt notice and make repairs but denied summary judgment on claims from roof leaks, finding factual issues remained, and denied both sides' broader requests to reinterpret the policy.

propertybusiness & regulatory

In Flores v. Allstate Texas Lloyd's Co., homeowners sued their insurer for breach of contract and related claims after Allstate denied coverage for mold damage resulting from water leaks in their home, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to provide prompt notice of the initial leaks and mitigate damages as required by the policy. Allstate moved for summary judgment, contending that the late notice of the original water events barred any claim for ensuing mold. The court denied the motion, holding that under the Texas HO-B policy, a failure to promptly report an initial water event does not, as a matter of law, preclude coverage for mold damage that manifests later, provided the insured gives prompt notice once the mold is discovered and the initial delay was reasonable. The decision rests on the policy's distinction between excluded mold and covered ensuing losses from water damage, along with fact-specific application of notice requirements rather than a blanket bar.

propertybusiness & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved Rain & Hail Insurance Service challenging the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation's (FCIC) decision to withhold over $1.5 million in reinsurance payments, plus interest, after determining that the company had overpaid Texas cotton farmers for 1996 drought losses. The plaintiffs alleged breach of the Standard Reinsurance Agreement, statutory violations, and a constitutional taking, while seeking judicial review of the Agriculture Board of Contract Appeals' upholding of the FCIC's findings. The court dismissed the takings claim, finding it indistinguishable from a contract breach claim for which remedies exist under the agreement, and indicated that review would proceed under administrative law standards rather than as an original action.

business & regulatoryfederal powerprocedure

In this insurance coverage dispute, homeowners sued their insurer for breach of contract and related claims after alleging that mold in their home caused health problems rendering the property untenantable and entitling them to alternate living expenses. The insurer moved to exclude the plaintiffs' medical expert's testimony on the health effects of household mold. The court held that untenantability must be judged by an objective reasonable-person standard rather than the occupants' subjective beliefs. It then excluded the expert testimony because the plaintiffs failed to satisfy Daubert reliability requirements, offering no peer-reviewed literature, specific causation evidence, dosage analysis, or testing linking the mold to the plaintiffs' symptoms. The ruling turned on the absence of competent scientific support for the claim that ordinary household mold exposure caused the alleged injuries.

propertyprocedure