by Carol Sims | Jun 11, 2018 | Cases in the News, Judiciary
When former state District Judge Rodolfo “Rudy” Delgado announced his retirement and resignation last week, he didn’t address one of the elephants in the room: whether he’ll run for a seat on a state appellate court. His wife and campaign treasurer, Diana Delgado, confirmed Wednesday that her husband’s name was still on the November general election ballot as the…
by Carol Sims | Feb 1, 2017 | Cases in the News
Source: SETexasRecord Author: David Yates, Jan 31, 6:21 PM AUSTIN – A documentary filmmaker seeking to obtain the deposition of one of Texas’ most well-known plaintiff’s attorneys was shut down by a district judge Tuesday, as the court refused to unseal testimony linked to an asbestos memo that has been the subject of much controversy for the past two decades. In November, freelance journalist Christine Biederman intervened in a 24-year old asbestos suit filed in Travis County, seeking to unseal the deposition of trial lawyer Russell Budd, president of Baron & Budd — a Dallas-based law firm specializing in toxic torts. While the Baron & Budd case has been cleared off the court’s docket for more than a decade, Biederman believes Budd’s deposition, which is presumably centered on the “Terrell memo,” has relevancy to current asbestos litigation and would eventually play a role in the documentary she is helping to produce. The Terrell memo, considered by some to be a “cheat sheet,” purportedly reveals how Baron & Budd attorneys coached up clients on how to identify asbestos products and exposures that they might not actually remember and might never have been exposed to in the first place. Those seeking to produce the asbestos litigation documentary sought to videotape the hearing to unseal. However, Budd’s counsel objected and the judge refused to allow media to use any digital recording methods. Much of the hearing centered on whether the deposition was an actual court record and properly sealed under Rule 76a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. The rule states that a document may be sealed if the substantial interest...
by Carol Sims | Feb 2, 2016 | Cases in the News
by SCOTT A. BRISTER & DALE WAINWRIGHT February 1, 2016 Some judicial decisions — those covered on the front pages of newspapers and discussed on TV — are eagerly awaited by millions. But most cases do not involve hot-button issues that generate mass interest; typically, they concern matters so technical or arcane that no one beyond the immediate parties and legal specialists ever read them. Spicy or bland, however, every case is equally subject to certain iron rules — in particular, the rule that procedural and jurisdictional barriers often determine whether a court can decide the case at all. Failing to understand these threshold jurisdictional questions under the constitution can generate wildly misleading assessments of decisions that turn on jurisdiction rather than the merits of the question before the court. One current example is the Texas Supreme Court’s decision last June in State v. Naylor, a same-sex marriage case. Or at least, it would have been about same-sex marriage, if the court had had jurisdiction to decide the case. In the opening paragraph of the Naylor opinion, the court set forth the issue before it, stating that is must determine whether the “State lacks standing to appeal the judgment.” On a 5–3 vote, the justices — all eight judicial conservatives, all eight Republicans — held that they could not reach the merits. Why? The state was the only party that appealed, and the court’s majority held that the state lacked legal standing, a necessary component of jurisdiction, because under established rules of court procedure the state had sought to intervene in the case too late. We express no opinion...
