After a busy order list last Friday, the Court’s calendar is quiet this week. Any activity will show up on this Friday’s regular order list.

Briefing Requests

Last Friday, the Court requested briefing in some of the oldest pending petitions on the docket — a set of related cases out of the Dallas Court in which public employees sought to compel higher benefit payments, an issue addressed (at least in part) in Friday’s decision in City of El Paso v. Heinrich, No. 06-0778 (DB).

The new briefing requests came in City of Dallas v. Albert, No. 07-0284 (DB), City of Dallas v. Barber, No. 07-0285 (DB), City of Dallas v. Arredondo, No. 07-0286 (DB), City of Dallas v. Willis, No. 07-0287 (DB), City of Dallas v. Martin, No. 07-0288 (DB), and City of Dallas v. Parker, No. 07-0289 (DB).

Articles from the Past Week

• The First American case originating from the Texas Supreme Court is up for conference at SCOTUS and was selected as a ‘petition to watch’. Update: SCOTUS denied the petition in this order list (PDF).

• Two bills pending in the Texas Legislature were in the news this week, including a statutory-construction bill inspired by Entergy. Meanwhile, the bill that would require disclosure of the Texas Supreme Court’s intermediate votes remains pending in the Senate.

• In last Friday’s order list, the Texas Supreme Court decided seven cases and granted another for the fall argument calendar.

• And Lexis has recognized the Texas Supreme Court as its “insurance jurist of the year” because of the significance of its recent cases.