Second Court of Appeals
Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of March 20, 2017.
NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.
Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.
Doe v. Columbia N. Hills Hosp. Subsidiary, L.P., No. 02-16-00275-CV (Mar. 23, 2017) (Meier, J., joined by Walker, J., and Charles Bleil (Senior Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment)).
Held: Doe did not have notice of Appellees’ arbitration policy as a matter of law, considering that Appellees posted the policy on their intranet site, informed Doe about the intranet site, and instructed Doe that she was responsible for familiarizing herself with Appellees’ “policies” and that Doe acknowledged that she could access Appellees’ “policies” on the intranet site and that she had received “orientation” on “Problem solving/Grievance Procedures.”
In re Commitment of Dever, No. 02-16-00276-CV (Mar. 23, 2017) (Meier, J., joined by Walker and Gabriel, JJ.).
Held: In an appeal from a judgment civilly committing a person as a sexually violent predator, we join the Beaumont court of appeals and both Houston courts of appeals in applying the standard of review for criminal cases to a legal sufficiency complaint and in continuing to perform a factual sufficiency review post-Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010).
City of Denton v. Rushing, No. 02-16-00330-CV (Mar. 23, 2017) (Walker, J., joined by Meier and Gabriel, JJ.).
Held: In this breach-of-a-unilateral-contract suit against the City to recover on-call pay that Appellees claimed the City owed them under Policy No. 106.06 of the City’s Policies and Procedures Manual for on-call periods they had worked, we hold that the three elements necessary to trigger Texas Local Government Code’s section 271.152’s waiver of immunity have been established: (1) the City is a “local governmental entity” as defined by section 271.151(3); (2) the City is authorized by statute or the constitution to enter into contracts; and (3) the City in fact entered into a unilateral contract that is “subject to this subchapter,” as defined by section 271.151(2). Accordingly, because the City’s governmental immunity from Appellees’ suit is waived by Texas Local Government Code section 271.152, we affirm the trial court’s denial of the City’s plea to the jurisdiction or alternative motion for traditional summary judgment.
In re Reardon, No. 02-16-00455-CV (Mar. 23, 2017) (Sudderth, J., joined by Livingston, C.J., and Walker, J.).
Held: Neither stare decisis nor rule of appellate procedure 41.3 mandates that a transferor court follow a transferee court’s precedent. A trial court does not lose jurisdiction over a subsequently filed motion to modify an order in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship when the order sought to be modified is also pending appellate review.