On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an opinion granting Petition for Writ of Mandamus compelling a non-signatory to an arbitration clause to arbitrate personal injury claims the Court itself admits do not stem from the contract which contains the arbitration clause. The plaintiff in the underlying case asserted personal injury claims against a home builder, claiming that she developed asthma from the dust created by the home builder’s repairs of the home in which she lived (but which she did not own), so she decided to get help with injuries from lawyers as https://www.spauldinginjurylaw.com/savannah/. The purchase agreement which obligated the home builder to undergo the repairs contained an arbitration clause, and the home builder attempted to compel arbitration of the asthma claims. The asthmatic plaintiff was not a signatory to the purchase agreement. The Texas Supreme Court adopted a doctrine of “direct-benefits estoppel,” asserting that since the asthmatic plaintiff insisted upon and enjoyed benefits of the contract (specifically its warranty and repair provisions), she could not subsequently avoid the contract’s arbitration clause. The Court declines to establish a firm test for lower courts to apply when “deciding what particular conduct embraces or merely shakes hands with” the contract, stating instead that trial courts must “exercise some discretion based on the facts of each case.” In other words, the rule in Texas, as of Friday, seems to be: if a party embraces a contract containing an arbitration clause, it cannot then avoid arbitration of tort claims unrelated to the contract, but if the party merely shakes hands with the contract, then arbitration is not required. The Court acknowledges that since the U.S. Supreme Court has not adopted direct-benefits estoppel, “its application and boundaries are not entirely clear.” The case was complicated by the fact that the home was purchased by the asthmatic plaintiff’s elderly father and then given to a trust for the plaintiff’s benefit, the idea being that the elderly father would live with his daughter and her family during his sunset years, after which the daughter would own the house. That being the case, the daughter supervised the construction and repairs, despite not being an owner of the home. So, the factual relationship between the daughter, the trust which owned the property, and the home builder which repaired the home and allegedly caused the daughter’s asthma was complex, to say the least. Emerging from this unusual set of facts is a vaguely defined doctrine which may prove to have a broad impact, given the seeming ubiquity of arbitration clauses in today’s consumer contracts. Finally, it seems worth noting that, according to the Texas Supreme Court, neither party challenged the trial court ruling that the FAA, as opposed to the TAA, governed the contract which contained the arbitration clause. As we’ve noted on this blog before, TAA analysis would place far stricter requirements on arbitration clauses which purport to require arbitration of personal injury claims than does the FAA. Cause No. 04-0119, In RE: Weekley Homes, LP Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, Texas Supreme Court, law

This morning, the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in an appeal by the Bexar Metropolitan Water District of a decision by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to approve the City of Bulverde’s application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity for water utility service. In this case, the administrative law judge recommended against the certificate, but the commission disagreed and granted the certificate, the trial court affirmed the commission’s decision, and the third court of appeals further affirmed. Cause No. 03-04-00574-CV, Bexar Metropolitan Water District v. the TCEQ, et al. The Court also issued a memorandum opinion in a fairly interesting case in which it reversed a trial court’s summary judgment, which had been granted on the grounds that the underlying plaintiff had failed to file her complaint of employment discrimination within the 180-day deadline. According to the Court of appeals, there was conflicting evidence as to whether the plaintiff had filed in September 2002 (timely) or in December 2002 (not timely). The plaintiff’s deposition testimony indicated that she had been in a coma from early September to late December, so she had no memory of when she signed the complaint. On its face, the complaint seemed to have been signed and mailed in late September, though the TCHR and EEOC did not have a record of receiving it until December. Based on that record, according to the Third Court of Appeals, summary judgment was inappropriate. Cause No. 03-04-00695, Kolojaezchskyi v. Marriot Finally, the Court issued a memorandum opinion affirming a jury verdict in a workers’ compensation case. Cause No. 03-04-00242-CV, O’Neill v. Zurich American Ins. Co.

Today, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an opinion granting a petition for writ of mandamus pertaining to a nursing home’s claim that certain documents were privileged from discovery based on four distinct asserted privileges: the medical committee privilege; the medical peer review committee privilege; the nursing peer review committee privilege; and the quality assessment and assurance privilege. The Court grants the petition for writ of mandamus, holding that the trial court “abused its discretion by using only superficial indicators to deny Living Centers’s privilege claim as to nearly all the documents at issue.” The Court sets forth the kind of analysis it expects courts to use when applying the privileges at issue, particularly in the nursing home context (and since the court holds that three of the four asserted privileges apply to nursing homes “to the same extent as hospitals,” its analysis would clearly also apply in the hospital context). Cause No. 04-0176, In RE: Living Centers of Texas, Inc. Technorati Tags: litigation, Texas Supreme Court, law

Today, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an opinion reversing a decision by the Dallas Court of Appeals which in turn had reversed a trial court’s dismissal of a nursing home resident’s claims on limitations grounds. In the underlying case, the resident alleged that she was sexually assaulted in a nursing home and asserted what she characterized as premises liability claims against the home. The claims were more than five years old when brought, but since all parties agreed that the plaintiff was mentally incapacitated, the plaintiff claimed that section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code tolled limitations. The nursing home, on the other hand, asserted that the plaintiff’s claims were really medical malpractice claims, since the plaintiff’s allegations were allegations that the nursing home breached its standard of care by negligently supervising the plaintiff’s treatment. In a medical negligence case, there is no tolling provision in cases of mental incapacity, so the nursing home claimed that limitations barred the plaintiff’s claim. The trial court agreed with the home and granted its motion for summary judgment, but the Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed, stating that the claims were not medical but were instead plain-vanilla premises liability claims. The six-justice majority (actually five and a half, as Justice Jefferson only joined in part of the majority opinion) agreed with the trial court, and held that the allegations were essentially medical negligence allegations, so there was no tolling of limitations. Justice Jefferson disagreed with the majority in its characterization of the plaintiff’s claims as medical negligence claims, but he agreed with the result. According to Justice Jefferson, the plaintiff’s premises claims are barred by limitations as they were claims that the home departed from “accepted standards of safety” as contemplated by the former article 4590i (now CPRC Section 74.001(a)(13)). Accordingly, they are governed by the limitations rules of medical claims, and so there is no tolling in the case of incapacity. However, according to Justice Jefferson, they are still premises claims, so had they not been time-barred, the plaintiff should not have had to meet the heightened standard of proof demanded in medical cases. Finally, Justice O’Neill wrote a dissent on behalf of herself and two other Justices. She argued that some of the plaintiff’s claims had absolutely nothing to do with the nursing home’s medical treatment or judgment, so those claims ought to have sounded in ordinary negligence and not been governed by the rules which control medical claims. Cause No. 02-0849, Goliad Manor v. Rubio Technorati Tags: litigation, Texas Supreme Court, law