Articles

Author: Deborah La Fetra & Joshua Thompson The Texas Supreme Court issued a decision today in Del Lago Partners v. Smith.  PLF filed an amicus briefin that case way back in December 2007.  The case dealt with the extent to which business owners can be held liable, under a premises liability theory, for an assault occurring &# ...

Author: Deborah J. La Fetra The Texas Supreme Court today issued a favorable ruling in Bennett v. Reynolds. As the court phrased it, “This case involves an extended drought, missing cattle, and feuding neighbors.” Thirteen head of Randy Reynolds’ cattle wandered up the dry Colorado River bed onto Tom Bennett’s land. Due to a ...

Ruling today in Pacific Legal Foundation’s case of Severance v. Patterson, the Texas Supreme Court once again rejected the state’s claim that government can gain control of private beachfront land whenever the land loses its vegetation and becomes a dry, sand area. In other words, the court held that the state may not “roll” ...

Recently, bloggers and even the Texas Land Commissioner were decrying several Texas Supreme Court Justices for their “extreme activism” in ruling in favor of property owners in Severance v. Patterson. What was the reason for this outrage? Simple: the Court found that if the state wished to declare that Mrs. Severance’s private pr ...

“There’s a vastness here and I believe that the people who are born here breathe that vastness into their soul.  They dream big dreams and think big thoughts, because there is nothing to hem them in.”  Hotelier & Texas native Conrad Hilton Texas entrepreneur Marvin Atwood pursued his life-long dream of owning a restaurant wh ...

Today, the Texas Supreme Court released a narrow decision in MAN Engines & Components, Inc v. Shows.  Doug Shows purchased a used 55-foot yacht, “as-is,” containing engines built by the defendant, MAN Engines.  When the engines failed, Mr. Shows sued MAN Engines and prevailed on his claim that MAN breached the implied warranty of ...

The Texas Supreme Court is currently considering one of the most important contract cases in recent years. In Plains v. Torch (our shortened name, for the sake of convenience), two oil companies dispute the rightful owner of a 43 million dollar award that one of the parties (Plains) obtained from the federal government. Both parties … ...

Today the Texas Supreme Court announced it would accept review in Plains v. Torch, an important case addressing a fundamental question of contract interpretation: Should a dispute about the meaning of a contract be governed by the words of the contract or by vague notions of abstract justice? Both parties argue that this case should … ...

Today the Texas Supreme Court held in Plains v. Torch that a contract dispute worth over 43 million dollars should be governed by the words of the contract, rather than by vague notions of abstract justice. PLF filed an amicus brief in the case, and we have previously posted about the case on this blog … ...