The Court is hearing arguments this morning in three cases.

Does the Lottery Act prohibit selling your final two lottery payments?

Texas Lottery Commission v. First State Bank of DeQueen, et al., No. 08-0523 (more info)

This is a case I could write about all day. But that might be because I was counsel for the State in the court of appeals (before starting my own firm), and so I will refrain.

Emily Ramshaw wrote an article about the case on The Texas Tribune. (If you haven’t browsed around that website yet, you should.)

I also wrote a very brief overview in this earlier post noting the Court’s grant of review.

Does a permanent easement let the State haul away your dirt?

State of Texas v. Charles Lynn Brownlow, No. 08-0551 (more info)

Osler’s email sums up the main issue:

…whether the Department of Transportation’s permanent easement for a water-detention pond adjacent to a widened highway allows the state to excavate soil from the easement for highway work miles away.

The court of appeals concluded that the State did not have immunity against this suit because it did not own the land outright.

Prerequisites to suit for a workers-compensation retaliation claim

Travis Central Appraisal District v. Diane Lee Norman, No. 09-0100 (more info)

The case is about whether (and how) a public employee can sue for retaliatory discharge. Among other arguments, the appraisal district contends that the Texas Supreme Court should overrule City of LaPorte v. Barfield, 898 S.W.2d 288 (Tex. 1995), which held that governmental immunity was waived for those claims.