The case concerned whether a qui tam relator's statutory claim under the Texas Health Care Program Fraud Prevention Act survives the relator's death, allowing the estate's executor to continue prosecuting a Medicaid fraud suit against Dr. Robert Tafel. The Supreme Court of Texas held that such claims survive because the State owns the underlying cause of action and directs its prosecution, even though the relator acts on the State's behalf in exchange for a share of any recovery. The core reasoning was that the statute's text and structure confirm the State's primary interest and control, including rights to intervene, settle, or dismiss, without authorizing assignment or inheritance of the relator's role to third parties. The concurring opinion agreed on survival but emphasized limits on private delegation of state authority and noted unresolved issues of executor capacity.
The case concerned whether the State of Texas could assert sovereign immunity to bar a landowner's statutory claim under Property Code Chapter 21 to repurchase property previously acquired through eminent domain but later deemed unnecessary for public use. The Supreme Court of Texas held that the State has no immunity from such repurchase claims, that a condemnation suit followed by settlement on value still qualifies as property acquired through eminent domain, that repurchase may be sought for only the unneeded portion of the property, and that county courts at law have concurrent jurisdiction with district courts over these claims. The Court reasoned that repurchase rights stem directly from constitutional restrictions on the State's eminent domain power, that the Legislature placed these claims within statutory provisions authorizing suits against the State without immunity, and that the statutory scheme expressly empowers trial courts to resolve all issues in eminent domain cases, including those against the State.
This case concerned the termination of parental rights of a father and mother to their four children, based on evidence including the father's participation in the mother's abuse of one child, failure to visit or engage in reunification services for over a year, a high-speed police chase while possessing methamphetamine, and refusal to provide clean drug tests. A jury found grounds for termination on endangerment and constructive abandonment. The Supreme Court of Texas upheld termination as to the mother but reversed as to the father, concluding the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's findings against him. The partial dissent argued that the evidence was legally sufficient to uphold termination of the father's rights and that the majority failed to defer to the jury as factfinder.
The case concerned whether borrowers could invoke the Texas Constitution's forfeiture remedy to void an entire home equity line of credit after the lender, BBVA USA, overcharged approximately $10,000 in interest on a roughly $700,000 loan secured by a Texas homestead. The borrowers notified the lender of the billing error, which the lender eventually acknowledged and corrected by tendering the overcharged amount plus interest, but the borrowers sued for breach of contract and sought constitutional forfeiture of the full loan principal and interest under Article XVI, Section 50(a)(6)(Q)(x). The trial court and court of appeals rejected the forfeiture claim, and the Supreme Court of Texas affirmed, holding that the forfeiture remedy applies only to violations of the specific constitutionally mandated loan terms and conditions enumerated in Section 50(a)(6), not to breaches of other contractual provisions such as the agreed interest rate. The court's reasoning relied on the text of the Constitution, prior precedent including Garofolo v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, and the principle that forfeiture is a limited remedy tied to fundamental homestead protections rather than an open-ended sanction for any loan agreement violation.
The case involved a landowner's trespass claim against an electric cooperative that upgraded an existing power line on a legacy easement acquired decades earlier for rural electrification. The jury found that the cooperative had not exceeded the easement's scope, rejecting the trespass claim, but the majority of the Court held that the upgrade departed from the easement's historic use and constituted trespass as a matter of law, remanding the claim. The dissent argued that the landowner bore the burden of proving trespass, that legally sufficient evidence supported the jury's verdict, and that the majority improperly substituted its judgment for the jury's on disputed factual issues regarding the easement's scope and the landowner's notice.
This case involved a premises liability claim by Marissa Peterson against H-E-B after she slipped and fell on a clear liquid puddle in a toy aisle of one of its grocery stores. The trial court granted summary judgment for H-E-B, the court of appeals reversed that ruling, and the Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals to reinstate the summary judgment. The Court held that Peterson failed to present evidence showing how long the puddle had existed before her fall, which is required to raise a fact issue on the store's constructive notice of the condition under established precedent. Without such temporal evidence, no-evidence summary judgment was proper even though leaks had occurred elsewhere in the store during prior rainstorms.
This case concerned the proper valuation of a nonparticipating royalty interest reserved in a 1960 deed conveying Texas ranchland, specifically whether the royalty on oil and gas should be calculated based on the value of raw minerals at the wellhead or on the higher sales price of processed gas sold downstream. The royalty owners sued the operators, arguing that the deed's "free of cost forever" language entitled them to a royalty free of postproduction costs and based on downstream proceeds. The trial court and court of appeals ruled for the royalty owners, but the Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the deed reserves a royalty on minerals "produced from the above described acreage" at the well. The Court reasoned that absent language specifying a downstream valuation point or expressly reallocating postproduction costs, the royalty bears those costs under the default rule, and the "free of cost forever" phrase only confirms the royalty is free of exploration and production expenses.
The case concerned a dispute over indemnity obligations in a purchase order between S&B Engineers & Constructors and Scallon Controls for a fire suppression system installed at a refinery. After an incident caused injuries to third-party workers, S&B settled the resulting negligence claims for $6.75 million and sought to recover that amount from Scallon under a proportionate indemnity clause covering Scallon's allocable share of negligence. The majority of the Supreme Court of Texas held that S&B could pursue the indemnity claim through a case-within-a-case proceeding to determine the reasonableness of the settlement and allocation of fault. The dissenting opinion reasoned that the clause's plain language limited indemnity to Scallon's own negligence and did not expressly shift responsibility for S&B's settlement of its own liability, contrary to precedent requiring clear terms for such indemnification.
This case concerns the enforcement of a 2021 divorce decree between Debbie Jo Morrison and Rodney Wayne Morrison, under which the parties were to sell community property like the marital home and divide proceeds, with provisions for assessing damages against a spouse who damaged or failed to deliver property. The trial court found Rodney violated the decree multiple times and awarded Debbie all proceeds from the home sale as damages, but without determining the fair market value of the losses. The Supreme Court of Texas held that the trial court had jurisdiction to enforce the decree and award damages for breaches but exceeded its authority by reallocating the full proceeds without evidence of actual damages, as required by the decree and Family Code Chapter 9, which bars modification of the original property division. The court of appeals had vacated the order for lack of jurisdiction, but the Supreme Court reversed that dismissal and remanded for further proceedings to properly assess damages.
This case involves a challenge by Texas counties and prosecutors to administrative rules issued by the Attorney General requiring submission of detailed reports, including privileged information, with potential penalties like quo warranto proceedings for noncompliance. After a trial court issued a temporary injunction halting enforcement following an evidentiary hearing, the State appealed and superseded the order; the court of appeals then granted a stay reinstating the injunction pending appeal without assessing the merits of the claims. The Supreme Court of Texas granted mandamus relief, directing the court of appeals to vacate the stay or properly evaluate whether the prosecutors were likely to succeed on the merits before overriding the State's supersedeas right. The core reasoning is that appellate courts exercising discretion under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 29.3 to grant stays against governmental supersedeas must consider both the preliminary merits and the balance of harms, as established in prior precedent like In re State, while allowing reasonable time for such review.
The case concerned whether individual shareholders of a real estate investment trust could bring direct claims against third-party advisors for alleged mismanagement, relying on an advisory agreement between the trust and the advisors that mentioned a fiduciary relationship to the trust and its shareholders. The Supreme Court of Texas decided that the agreement did not create individual duties to shareholders separate from those owed to the entity, requiring any such claims to be pursued through a derivative action on behalf of the trust. The court reasoned that shareholders lacked both a personal cause of action and an individual injury, and thus had no capacity to sue directly; it therefore granted mandamus relief directing the trial court to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
This case arose from a multi-vehicle collision on an icy Texas interstate highway in which a car crossed the median and struck a Werner Enterprises truck driven by Shiraz Ali, resulting in fatalities and injuries to the Blake family; the Blakes sued Werner and Ali for negligence, alleging Ali's excessive speed was a proximate cause of the harm. The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the trial court's judgment in favor of the Blakes and rendered judgment for Werner and Ali, concluding that the other driver's loss of control was unforeseeable as a matter of law and that Ali's conduct was not a substantial factor in causing the injuries. The partial dissent agreed that reversal was required because the jury charge contained harmful errors, including instructions on direct liability theories against Werner not recognized under Texas law and questions that deviated from pattern jury charges for traffic accidents, which misled the jury on proportionate responsibility. However, the dissent would have remanded for a new trial rather than rendering judgment, because the record contained some evidence that Ali's speed in icy conditions foreseeably contributed to the severity of the injuries and thus supported submitting negligence and causation questions to the jury.
This case concerns a dispute between Southern Methodist University, a nonmember nonprofit corporation, and the South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church over the Conference's approval rights under SMU's articles of incorporation, which SMU's board amended in 2019 without seeking Conference approval. The Conference sued for declaratory relief and breach of contract, claiming the articles constituted a contract or made it a third-party beneficiary. The majority of the Texas Supreme Court held that the articles are not a contract between the parties but do confer third-party beneficiary status on the Conference, allowing it to pursue damages on a breach claim in addition to statutory declaratory relief. The dissenting opinion argued that nonprofit charters do not create enforceable contract rights or third-party beneficiary status for outside organizations, that no statute supports private damages claims, and that only declaratory relief under governance statutes should be available.
This case concerns whether the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) can pursue individual damages claims on behalf of over 8,000 member pilots against Boeing for lost compensation after the 737 MAX grounding. SWAPA initially sued based on associational standing and later obtained assignments of the pilots' claims. The trial court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction, but the court of appeals modified the dismissal to be without prejudice, allowing SWAPA to refile based on the assignments. The dissenting opinion argues that Business Organizations Code Section 252.007 prohibits nonprofit associations from asserting claims requiring individual member participation, that the assignments do not circumvent this limit, and that the trial court's dismissal with prejudice should be reinstated.
This case concerns a medical malpractice suit in which Rebecca Lugo alleged that Dr. Michael Burke negligently caused injury to her daughter during surgery and sought to hold his employer, Renaissance Medical Foundation (a certified nonprofit health organization), vicariously liable. The Texas Supreme Court considered the foundation's petition for review after the court of appeals had applied traditional common-law control factors and largely rejected a statutory defense. A concurring opinion agrees that the trial court properly denied the foundation's motion for summary judgment, because the motion relied on general common-law vicarious-liability principles rather than invoking Occupations Code Section 162.0021. That statute bars nonprofit health organizations from interfering with or controlling a physician's independent professional judgment, thereby precluding vicarious liability for injuries caused by the physician's exercise of medical judgment absent unlawful interference by the organization.
This case involves a medical malpractice claim brought by Jared Bush, Jr. against a hospital and its parent company after his wife died from a pulmonary embolism that physicians allegedly failed to diagnose during her hospital visit. The plaintiff relied on an expert report under Texas Chapter 74 to allege that the hospital was negligent for lacking policies, such as a 'Triple Rule Out' protocol, that could have prevented the independent physicians' misdiagnosis. The Supreme Court of Texas held that the report sufficiently supported a claim against the hospital defendants, reversing the court of appeals' dismissal. The majority reasoned that allegations of inadequate hospital policies could establish the necessary causation link even without direct employee conduct causing the injury. Justice Bland dissented, arguing that the report failed to identify any hospital-employee action or omission as a proximate cause and improperly sought to impose vicarious liability on the hospital for non-employee physicians.
In this case, a mother sued a trampoline park for injuries her child allegedly suffered during a second visit, after she had signed a release agreement containing a broad arbitration clause on an earlier visit. The trial court denied the park's motion to compel arbitration, but the court of appeals reversed, and the Texas Supreme Court affirmed that ruling. The Court held that a valid arbitration agreement existed between the parties, and because that agreement unmistakably delegated disputes over its scope, validity, and arbitrability to an arbitrator, courts must compel arbitration without deciding whether the agreement extended to the second visit. The core reasoning was that once validity is established, questions about the agreement's duration or applicability to particular claims are scope issues reserved for the arbitrator under the parties' contract.
This case involved a property owner who, more than a decade after a default judgment foreclosed tax liens on inherited land via service by publication, sued to collaterally attack the judgment and void a subsequent purchaser's deed on due process grounds. The trial court granted summary judgment to the owner, setting aside the judgment and tax sale, but the court of appeals reversed, finding fact issues on service adequacy. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the reversal and remanded, holding that an owner who obtains notice of the default judgment or property sale during the statutory limitations and redemption periods cannot later set aside the purchaser's title on due process grounds, and that subsequent purchasers may raise equitable defenses like laches if the owner unreasonably delays after such notice. The Court reasoned that notice during those periods provides an adequate legal remedy and that the record did not conclusively establish the timing of notice here to support summary judgment on the defenses.
The case involved a divorced mother, Christine Stary, who was subject to a lifetime civil protective order barring all contact with her three children after the trial court found she had committed felony-level family violence, based on evidence of alleged abuse presented by the father, Brady Ethridge. The trial court issued the order under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that due process requires clear and convincing evidence—and consideration of the children's best interests—before a court can issue a protective order longer than two years that prohibits all parent-child contact, because such orders substantially interfere with the fundamental right to parental care and custody in a manner comparable to termination of parental rights. The Court remanded for a new hearing applying the heightened standard.
The case involved whether a juvenile court could transfer a capital murder prosecution against an adult, who allegedly committed the offense at age 16, to adult criminal court after his 18th birthday. The juvenile court had found good cause for the delay under the Family Code because probable cause developed only after the person turned 18, but the court of appeals reversed and dismissed. The Texas Supreme Court reversed, holding that the development of probable cause does not conclusively determine whether it was practicable for the State to proceed in juvenile court before adulthood and that other reasons beyond the State's control may support a transfer finding. Because the juvenile court's findings had similarly conflated the probable-cause inquiry with the statutory standard, the Court remanded for a new transfer hearing.