Appellate Law

Texas Supreme Court Orders & Opinion 10/10/08

By D. Todd Smith

The Texas Supreme Court re-issued one previously released opinion with this week's regular orders.  In Kerlin v. Sauceda (05-0653) (originally decided 8/29/08), the court made the following wording changes at the end of the last complete paragraph on page 12 of the PDF version:

But if a nonresident’s  is amenable to service of process under the longarm statute and has contacts with the state are sufficient to afford personal jurisdiction under the general longarm statute, as was the case with Kerlinit is undisputed Kerlin’s were, then we can discern no reason why a nonresident’s “presence” in this state would not be established for purposes of the tolling statute.

The Court's disposition—reversed and rendered—remained the same.  (Thanks to Osler McCarthy for pointing out the changes.)

The orders were a mixed bag for my clients.  We persuaded the Court to deny a mandamus petition complaining about two district court rulings:  (1) refusal to allow the relator to designate a responsible third party; and (2) denial of a motion for severance involving a potentially dispositive issue.  After requesting full briefing, however, the Court denied the petition for review in a case I took under its new pro bono program.

Full post as published by Texas Appellate Law Blog on October 10, 2008 (boomark / email).