According to Harvey Kronberg, the Texas Legislature may be studying legislation that would address a frequent and contentious question of statutory construction — how to treat the Legislature’s “recodifications” of existing statutes when those recodifications, along the way, make other textual changes to the statute.

From the part of Quorum Report available to mere mortals and non-subscribers:

The decision caused immediate shockwaves among some lawmakers who believed the Court was disregarding legislative intent with its opinion. Labor groups and plaintiffs’ attorneys interpreted the decision as an attempt to further close access to the courts for people injured at work.

The chairman of the House Insurance Committee told QR late last week that he was one of those lawmakers taken surprise by the Court’s decision. And with the Entergy decision [Entergy Gulf States v. Summers (No. 05-0272), see page 7 of the pdf] now listed as an interim charge for his committee, he’d like to take a look at how the Court treats recods in its opinions. ((This was taken from the “Daily Buzz” section of the website on December 3, 2007. I apologize that I am not including a proper hyperlink to the passage, but I do not see an obvious way to do so (and Quorum Report has not yet responded to my email asking what citation they would prefer).))

A motion for rehearing was filed in the Entergy case on November 19, 2007 and remains pending before the Court. [See current docket sheet.]