In this term, the Texas Supreme Court made it clear that cities can’t step into the shoes of state environmental regulators, cemented a line of reasoning that treats groundwater like oil and gas and raised the bar for scuttling an arbitration award as the court cleared its plate of argued cases.
The court didn’t make waves in two cases that could have rocked the state budget, rejecting a challenge to the constitutionality of school finance and saving the state billions by rejecting an oil and gas company’s tax refund case. Instead, the court proved to be workmanlike, clearing its docket of argued cases by the end of June for only the second time in its history, including rulings that recognized an avenue for property damages that previously had been a non-starter and opened the door to more pretrial appeals.
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The court didn’t make waves in two cases that could have rocked the state budget, rejecting a challenge to the constitutionality of school finance and saving the state billions by rejecting an oil and gas company’s tax refund case. Instead, the court proved to be workmanlike, clearing its docket of argued cases by the end of June for only the second time in its history, including rulings that recognized an avenue for property damages that previously had been a non-starter and opened the door to more pretrial appeals.
Here, Law360 looks back at five notable decisions from the high court term ...
Coyote Lake Ranch LLC v. Lubbock ...
Mark Trachtenberg of Haynes and Boone LLP said it’s significant that the court for a second time equated groundwater to oil and gas rights in a property dispute. Being able to turn to oil and gas jurisprudence will be more important as water rights disputes grow more frequent in light of booming population in Texas and higher-than-ever demand for water, he said.
