55 results for 'judge:"Palafox"'.
J. Palafox denies habeas relief to defendant, who argued that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was arrested and charged for murder as an adult despite being only 17 at the time of the offense. Pretrial habeas relief is not available unless the asserted rights would be "undermined if not vindicated before trial," which is not the case here. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00154-CR, Categories: Constitution, Juvenile Law, Civil Rights
J. Palafox denies habeas relief to defendant, who argued that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was arrested and charged for murder as an adult despite being only 17 at the time. Pretrial habeas relief is not available unless the asserted rights would be “undermined if not vindicated before trial,” which is not the case here. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00159-CR, Categories: Constitution, Juvenile Law, Civil Rights
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in revoking defendant’s community supervision for failing to submit to drug tests after he pleaded guilty to heroin possession with a repeat-offender enhancement. Defendant argued he had not been given specific and adequate notice about the terms of his probation, but according to precedent from the Court of Criminal Appeals, a defendant waives their right to complain about probation terms if they don’t raise those complaints at trial. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: April 10, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00237-CR, Categories: Drug Offender, Probation, Plea
J. Palafox finds a lower court partially erred in entering no-evidence summary judgment against an injured passenger after she sued the driver of the vehicle she was in following an accident. The passenger has provided some evidence of causation, and for that reason the case should not have been thrown out entirely — though that passenger has “failed to produce more than a scintilla of evidence of her medical expenses and compensable mental anguish damages.” Reversed in part.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: April 4, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00221-CV, Categories: Vehicle, Damages, Negligence
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J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in denying El Paso County’s plea to the jurisdiction after it was sued by a former employee who said the county breached its settlement agreement following an employment lawsuit by failing to reinstate her “within a reasonable time.” Regardless of whether there are merit to the ex-employee’s claims — “those issues exceed the scope of [this] jurisdictional inquiry” — the county already conceded that it waived immunity in this matter and cannot now reassert it. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: March 27, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00173-CV, Categories: Employment, Settlements, Immunity
J. Palafox finds a lower court partially erred in a complicated fraud case in which the suing company, which was working with several other companies to build a solar power facility in Nicaragua, accused its former partners of mislabeling and supplying lower quality solar panels than the parties had agreed to. The lower court was wrong to find that one company involved in the case still had a right to exercise a forum-selection clause in its contract, because the company had “consciously litigated” in Texas and only attempted to exert this option “after receiving an adverse ruling.” Otherwise, the court ruled correctly, including issuing a take-nothing judgement against another company after the suing company failed to address the individual elements of its fraud by nondisclosure claim. Reversed in part.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: March 20, 2024, Case #: 08-22-00244-CV, Categories: Fraud, Contract
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress after he allegedly fled the scene of an accident and was later charged with a DWI. Defendant raised a number of issues on appeal, including arguing authorities did not have probable cause to arrest him, but defendant’s vehicle “matched the description and license plate number of the vehicle seen leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00168-CR, Categories: Dui, Due Process
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in terminating a mother’s parental rights. The mother argued child welfare officials had not provided adequate evidence to terminate her rights or to show that termination was in the best interest of the children, but the mother has repeatedly tested positive for methamphetamine, has missed mandatory drug tests and “spent minimal time with the children and did not nurture or
maintain a strong bond through visitation.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: February 26, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00282-CV, Categories: Evidence, Government, Guardianship
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in denying a motion to compel arbitration filed by a construction company against a customer after that customer sued, alleging faulty and late work on a pool. While the construction company argued there was a valid arbitration clause in their contract, they did not raise this demand until after almost two years of court fights, and while the construction company argued they were not aware of the arbitration clause until late in the case, they had in fact demanded arbitration much earlier. As a lawyer for the consumer argues, parties should have “knowledge of provisions contained in their own contracts.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00102-CV, Categories: Arbitration, Civil Procedure, Contract
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err when it convicted defendant of sexual assault of a child. Defendant appealed based on a jury instruction, which included a “factually impossible date” on which the victim would have no longer been a minor. However, since the jury established that sexual contact did in fact happen while the victim was a minor, this instruction creates “no egregious harm.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: February 14, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00197-CR, Categories: Sex Offender, Child Victims, Jury Instructions
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in convicting defendant of a variety of white-collar crimes. Defendant argued there were a variety of issues with her conviction, including a “voluminous amount of evidence” that her attorney was unable to review before trial, but defendant did not raise these issues at trial. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: January 23, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00006-CR, Categories: Evidence, Fraud, Theft
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in denying a company’s motion to compel arbitration after it was sued by an worker in a slip-and-fall negligence lawsuit. While the company argues that the worker was subject to a valid arbitration agreement, the worker meets requirements for exemptions under the Federal Arbitration Act, including because he is “a member of a class of workers engaged in interstate commerce.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: January 12, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00082-CV, Categories: Arbitration, Employment, Negligence
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err when it rejected defendant’s self-defense claim in convicting him of aggravated assault after he punched a child who “ding-dong ditched” his house. Defendant argued he was frightened, but other witnesses described him as having an “aggressive demeanor” and the overall evidence suggests that he “instead sought confrontation out of vengeance.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: January 4, 2024, Case #: 08-23-00038-CR, Categories: Assault, Self Defense
J. Palafox dismisses, for want of jurisdiction, an appeal brought by El Paso after the city was sued in a wrongful death case by parents who alleged their son lost control his motorcycle because a city street went “suddenly and without notice” from smooth asphalt to a rough unsurfaced street. Because the parents had nonsuited their tort claim, the controversy was moot at the time of the city’s appeal, and the city has presented no independent claim for relief that would justify overcoming the mootness doctrine.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00174-CV, Categories: Government, Jurisdiction, Wrongful Death
J. Palafox finds a lower court erred in denying a citizen's motion to reinstate a case after she sued a school district following a car accident with a school bus. While the case was dismissed due to their lawyer's "failure to appear at two hearings," the citizen has established that the absence was "not intentional or the result of conscious indifference" on her part. Reversed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00083-CV, Categories: Civil Procedure, Tort, Vehicle
J. Palafox finds that a lower court ruled correctly in convicting defendant on assault charges. Defendant argues that he received ineffective counsel by failing to communicate that the had accepted a plea offer before the state rescinded it, but he did not raise this issue until appeal and his attorney has not been given an opportunity to "to contest or contextualize his allegations." Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00092-CR, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Assault, Plea
J. Palafox finds a lower court erred in a mineral-rights dispute stemming from a so-called “double-fraction dilemma” in over the years, holders of mineral rights use separate fractions to allocate ownership. Contrary to the ruling of a lower court, the deed conveyed “floating royalty interest” to one set of owners, as language in the deed confirms. Reversed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: December 15, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00058-CV, Categories: Property, Real Estate, Contract
J. Palafox finds a lower court erred in granting summary judgment to an oil company and granting its motions to exclude expert testimony after a competitor sued the company because the sued firm’s disposal of saltwater from fracking operations allegedly led to a “precipitous drop in oil production” by the competitor. Experts provided by the competitor were qualified and considered “plausible alternative causes” for the drop in oil production before pointing blame at the sued oil business, and therefore there was a genuine factual dispute that made summary judgment inappropriate.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 31, 2023, Case #: 08-22-00103-CV, Categories: Civil Procedure, Energy, Experts
J. Palafox finds a lower court mostly ruled correctly in convicting defendant of unlawful possession of a firearm as a felon. While defendant argues that prior gun laws are “now in question” following the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen, legal precedent around firearms has generally been “premised on the principle that felons had historically lacked Second Amendment rights.” However, a “clerical error” in the lower court judgment misstates the statute which defendant violated and should be fixed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 31, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00057-CR, Categories: Constitution, Firearms, Civil Rights
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in denying special appearance in a lawsuit stemming from a car crash. The trucking company argued this court did not have jurisdiction over the matter, but in fact the trucking company “purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in Texas” and had the minimum contacts necessary for this court to have jurisdiction. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00052-CV, Categories: Vehicle, Damages, Jurisdiction
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in denying special appearance in a lawsuit stemming from a car crash. The trucking company argued this court did not have jurisdiction over the matter, but in fact the trucking company “purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in Texas” and had the minimum contacts necessary for this court to have jurisdiction. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00066-CV, Categories: Vehicle, Damages, Jurisdiction
J. Palafox finds a lower court erred in granting no-answer default judgment to a man who had sued his former employer, a car dealership, for alleged employment discrimination and other claims. While a process server for the man was unable to serve the car dealership’s registered agent, he instead served another person, but it is not clear the server exercised “reasonable diligence to effect personal service,” nor did he provide adequate information connecting the served defendant to the car dealership. Reversed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 16, 2023, Case #: 08-22-00187-CV, Categories: Civil Procedure, Due Process, Employment Discrimination
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in issuing a final divorce decree after the ex-wife appealed, arguing the court had erred in property and custody determinations and that she had been denied “her due process right to a full and fair hearing,” but the ex-wife has tried to present evidence that was not part of the original case record and the court was reasonable in issuing some of its disputed rulings, including on child custody in which the court was guided by precedential factors.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: October 16, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00042-CV, Categories: Family Law, Due Process, Guardianship
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in granting summary judgment to El Paso in a tax dispute with residents. Those residents argued there were still genuine factual disputes in this case, including their contention that tax authorities had “improperly and unlawfully” rejected payment of taxes as well as a tax protest, but the residents could not show a factual dispute after the city was able to “conclusively establish all elements of a … delinquent tax suit.” Their disputes with the city should have raised administratively, not here. Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00004-CV, Categories: Administrative Law, Government, Tax
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly when it convicted defendant of sexually abusing his daughter. Defendant argued that he had received ineffective counsel, but for the most part the record of this case is not “sufficiently developed to overcome the presumption of reasonable assistance,” and in a specific case where he argued his attorney had failed to object to inadmissible testimony, the testimony was in fact allowable and therefore “objections would have been futile.” Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: September 27, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00121-CR, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Sex Offender, Child Victims
J. Palafox finds a lower court ruled correctly in denying Whataburger’s efforts to dismiss, on Texas Citizens Protection Act grounds, a lawsuit brought by a customer who said was rear-ended in a Whataburger drive-thru, leading to a physical altercation. The customer said Whataburger had failed to handle the situation properly in a number of ways, including by allegedly failing to adequately train employees or maintain security. Whataburger argued it was immune in the suit under the Act, which protects the right of free association and speech in Texas, but the consumer asserts negligence and liability claims that are not covered under the TCPA. Affirmed.l
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: September 7, 2023, Case #: 08-23-00017-CV, Categories: Damages, Negligence, Premises Liability
J. Palafox finds a lower court did not err in denying habeas corpus relief and a new hearing to a convicted sex offender. Though that sex offender has already completed his sentence, he argues he is nonetheless "restrained by lifetime sex offender registration" and had ineffective counsel and is actually innocent. However, he has not "brought forward newly discovered affirmative evidence that unquestionably establishes his innocence." Affirmed.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Palafox, Filed On: September 1, 2023, Case #: 08-22-00237-CR, Categories: Evidence, Habeas, Sex Offender