Court Rulings

Granting a third-party defendant's special appearance arguing no personal jurisdiction over him because he did not commit any tortious acts while in Texas. Because the respondents did not plead or prove that this defendant has sufficient Texas contacts giving rise to the claims against him to support personal jurisdiction over him for any pled cause of action, the court granted the non-resident's special appearances and dismissed the claims against him without prejudice. Pursuant to Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 166(g), the Court issues this decision holding that (1) fact issues preclude the Court from determining whether the liquidated-damages clause in the parties' contract is an unenforceable penalty and (2) under the circumstances of this case, the defendant's cost-basis theory is not the correct measure of the plaintiff's actual damages. In this force-majeure dispute arising out of Winter Storm Uri, parties to a contract for the sale of natural gas dispute whether the seller should have (i) purchased gas on the spot market to cover any production shortfall or (ii) bought back its delivery obligation. The Court holds that the parties' contract did not obligate the seller to take either action as a prerequisite or alternative to declaring force majeure or as a contractually required "reasonable effort." Denying defendant's motion for summary judgment arguing that a contract does not require it to pay royalty payments on "revenues actually received by [the defendant] for final disposal of solid waste in the sanitary landfill operated on the Property," where the disposal is in a part of the landfill that is not on the Property. This opinion addresses whether a party may remove a case concerning trusts from statutory probate court to the business court. The court concluded it lacked jurisdiction because the claims asserted by the plaintiff arise out of Title 9 of the Property Code, and under section 25A.004(g) of the Texas Government Code, this court does not have j

The trial court awarded attorney's fees as sanctions against a petitioner and his attorney in this ouster proceeding, pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated § 8-47-122(b), following a voluntary nonsuit of the petition. The trial court based its award of sanctions upon, inter alia, its determination that the petition's allegations were unsupported and that the petitioner's attorney had acted recklessly when filing the petition by purporting to represent individuals with whom he had neither met nor spoken. The petitioner and his counsel have appealed. Upon review, we affirm the trial court's award of sanctions against counsel, but we vacate the court's award of sanctions against the individual petitioner. We decline to award additional attorney's fees on appeal.