Texas Legal Cases

Date: September 23, 2013 Last Edit: April 13, 2016

ESI/Employee Solutions, LP v. City of Dallas  – Employment

Eastern District of Texas

NFIB joined with other trade associations in a filing urging a federal district judge to enjoin enforcement of a Dallas ordinance imposing paid sick leave requirements on employers. The brief argued that Texas law preempts this sort of regulation. 

 

Fort Bend Co. v. Davis  – Employment

U.S. Supreme Court

The question presented in this case was whether a litigant must first file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before bringing a Title VII lawsuit against an employer. NFIB Legal Center argued that this is a jurisdictional requirement for any Title VII lawsuit, and that there could be no waivers.

 

Love Terminal Partners v. US – Property Rights

U.S. Supreme Court

An enactment by Congress required destruction of a brand-new facility (an airport terminal), and the federal government refused to pay compensation. As such, the company filed suit seeking just compensation and NFIB Legal Center filed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari to provide clarity as to how courts should evaluate regulatory takings claims of this sort.

 

American Stewards of Liberty v. DOI – Federalism

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

NFIB Small Business Legal Center filed in this case, arguing that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from regulating purely intrastate species under the Endangered Species Act.

 

Nall v. BNSF  – Regulatory

5th Circuit – Petition for rehearing en banc

NFIB Legal Center filed an amicus brief urging the Fifth Circuit to rehear this Americans with Disabilities Act case in which an employer was sued for alleged disability discrimination where it terminated an employee over cited safety concerns.  

 

Mbogo v. City of Dallas – Property Rights

Texas Supreme Court

The NFIB Legal Center filed an amicus brief urging the Texas Supreme Court to take this case to overturn a decision from the 1970s that denied landowners constitutional protection against regulatory restrictions requiring closure of an established business. The brief argued that non-noxious uses should be guaranteed constitutional protections once established.

 

Weyerhauser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service – Regulatory Reform

U.S. Supreme Court

The NFIB Legal Center filed an amicus brief arguing landowners should be allowed to seek judicial review to challenge U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s critical habitat designations affecting their lands—including the right to challenge whether the agency has seriously considered economic impacts.

 

TV Azteca v. Ruiz – Legal Reform

U.S. Supreme Court – cert petition

The Legal Center joined an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of a decision misapplying the Court’s personal jurisdiction precedents.  In the decision below, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction over defendants based on their contacts with the forum, even though these contacts were completely unrelated to the plaintiff’s claim.

 

ABC Texas and NFIB v. NLRB – Labor

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

NFIB joined with the Associated Builders & Contractors Texas in challenging the accelerated union election rules issued by the NLRB.

 

Bostic v. Georgia Pacific – Legal Reform

Texas Supreme Court

In this case, Plaintiffs are attempting to undercut an earlier ruling that rejected testimony by asbestos plaintiffs’ experts who opine that any exposure to asbestos no matter how small is a substantial contributing factor to a plaintiff’s harm.  It is this theory that is the path for plaintiffs’ lawyers to sue even the most remote defendants because the theory equates any exposure with causation.

 

City of Dallas v. Highway 205 Farms – Property Rights
10th Circuit

Eminent domain proceedings in Texas are initiated upon filing a condemnation petition in court. Once the case is initiated, the Property Code requires the judge to appoint special commissioners, who are assigned to determine the value of the property. Once the commissioners file their report, the owner then has an opportunity to file an objection, and to either challenge the eminent domain action or the commissioner’s determination of value. But this case asks what happens when the condemning authority fails to prosecute their case after initiating eminent domain proceedings—where the process stalls during the “administrative” portion of the case, such that the special commissioners never submit a report from which the landowner can appeal. We filed here to encourage the Texas Supreme Court to take the case because there must be some opportunity for a landowner to lift a cloud on the title of his property once emminent domain proceedings have begun; accordingly, we argued that the landowner should be enabled to seek a dismissal for want of prosecution if the condemning authority unreasonably fails to move the proceedings forward.

 

DR Horton — Employment Arbitration Agreements

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

This appeal involves a dispute over whether employers can require employees to agree to resolve employment disputes through arbitration, rather than through the courts. The NLRB contends that it is an unfair labor practice for an employment contract to contain a waiver of class action rights and to instead provide that disputes shall be resolved individually through arbitration. NFIB has defended employment arbitration agreements, which allow employers to resolve disputes expeditiously and without court costs.

 

In re Longview Energy Company – Legal Reform
Texas Supreme Court

This case involves whether Texas’s $25 million appeal bond cap, enacted as part of the state’s 2003 tort reform package, should be applied per judgment or per defendant. The trial court required a $100 million+ bond by multiplying the $25 million by four defendants, rather than allowing them to post a single $25 million bond.  The intermediate appellate court reversed.  Our amicus brief argues the bond applies per judgment. 

 

Texas v. Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. – Property Rights
Texas Supreme Court

The State of Texas appeals a decision awarding compensation to a billboard owner. Here the State required the billboard removed for a highway expansion project. NFIB Legal Center filed to make clear that billboard owners deserve compensation whenever government requires removal, and that the compensation award should take into account the potential revenue that the billboard could bring for a prospective buyer.

 

Texas v. United State – Regulatory Reform

U.S. Supreme Court

The State of Texas filed suit challenging President Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Setting aside the controversial policy issues presented in this case, NFIB Small Business Legal Center honed on a narrow question of administrative law—one that comes up time-and-again in other contests. Specifically, NFIB’s amicus brief in this case argued that the President’s actions amounted to substantive changes in the regulatory scheme, which should have gone through a notice-and-comment process wherein the public would have had an opportunity to voice concerns and to raise important issues. As NFIB has argued previously, the federal government should not be allowed to change substantive rules without going through the formal process required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

 

T-Mobile v. City of Roswell – Regulatory
U.S. Supreme Court (originated in TX)

The issue in the case is whether a local governmental authority complies with the requirement in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that any denial of an application to install a wireless communication facility be “in writing and supported by substantial evidence” if it fails to specify any reasons for its denial. Prior to the 1996 Act, local zoning authorities often dragged their feet or otherwise sought to prevent telecommunications companies from siting vital infrastructure (such as the cell phone towers at issue here) in their communities.  The Act was designed to fix that problem by requiring denials to be subject to effective judicial oversight.  

 

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar – Employment Discrimination
U.S. Supreme Court VICTORY!

NFIB filed a brief supporting the University of Texas in a retaliation claim. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee “because [the employee] has opposed an employment practice made unlawful” by Title VII or “has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing” under Title VII. In this case, the Court will decide whether an employee alleging retaliation in violation of Title VII satisfies the burden of proof by establishing that retaliation was a motivating factor in an adverse employment decision, or whether the employee must instead go further and prove that the employer would not have taken the adverse action but for the improper motive.

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If you have a case that impacts small business, please contact us at 1-800-552-NFIB or email us at [email protected] as we are actively looking for opportunities to weigh in on important issues in this state. NFIB Small Business Legal Center is involved in many cases that impact this state and others; to see our complete list of Supreme Court cases click on Washington, DC on the interactive map.

Thank You

 

 

 

 

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