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For many years after the Texas Supreme Court adopted rules that divided the opinions issued by the intermediate courts of appeals into “opinions” and “memorandum opinions,” many appellate practitioners privately concluded that if an opinion was designated “memorandum opinion,” the chances of getting Texas Supreme Court review were substantially reduced.  But in 2018, I reported…

I’ve run the numbers on the reversal rates for the intermediate appellate courts in Texas for the calendar year 2019.  The overall reversal rate for the year was 77%.  To clarify, when the Supreme Court of Texas granted a petition for review, it reversed the court of appeals 77% of the time in 2019. …

Each calendar year, the Supreme Court of Texas agrees to hear and decide somewhere around 80 petitions for review.   This is only a fraction of the petitions for review that come knocking on the court’s door.   When the court grants a petition for review the odds are very strong that the court is going to reverse the court of appeals judgment.  Overall reversal rates range between 75% to 85% for the years 2014 through 2017, with the average reversal rate for all four years being 82.2%.
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For well over a decade, the Supreme Court of Texas has been presented with more than 1000 different matters each fiscal year.  These matters consist of petitions for review, petitions for writs of mandamus, certified questions, petitions for habeas corpus, direct appeals, and a handful of other miscellaneous items.  The bulk of the court’s docket consists of petitions for review, which are either denied or granted.
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