Texas, like many other states, enacted legislation to curb meritless lawsuits whose purpose lies solely in chilling a person’s right to free speech and/or to petition his or her government.  Under Texas’ Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) law, a party may file a motion to dismiss a legal action which is “based on, relates

After Union Carbide served a treating physician with a subpoena duces tecum that encompassed records spanning over 30 years, plaintiffs’ counsel filed a motion for sanctions, asserting that the discovery requests were overbroad, harassing, and annoying, and he sought costs expended in defending against the subpoena duces tecum.  Union Carbide first learned of the motion

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that a district court overstepped the bounds of a court’s inherent authority by sanctioning conduct that occurred in connection with an arbitration proceeding. 

In Positive Software Solutions, Inc. v. New Century Mortgage Corp., the district court invoked its inherent authority to sanction and sanctioned the attorney

Practitioners will want to take note of this recent opinion from the Dallas Court of Appeals.

In a split decision in Davis v. Rupe, the court affirmed a sanctions order against an attorney based upon the trial court’s inherent power to sanction.  Because the trial court did not issue findings of fact to support its order (an omission that the dissenting judge looked on with disfavor), the court had to consider all grounds on which the trial court might have based its decision.   The majority recited three grounds, each of which provides some interesting dynamics.Continue Reading The inherent power to sanction…