Fifteenth Court of Appeals Decision – July 3, 2025
While the Blog focuses on Business Court decisions, it will also attempt to include summaries of relevant Texas Supreme Court and Fifteenth Court of Appeals decisions – here’s one from the Fifteenth Court of Appeals.
No.15-25-00019 In re T. Bentley Durant, et al. Relators (Original Proceeding from the Business Court Division 11A, Trial Court Cause No. 25-BC11A-0001.
[Chief Justice Brister, Author, with Justices Field and Farris]
Jurisdiction. Relators challenge a Business Court order remanding to the district court a civil action commenced before September 1, 2024. This court has previously held that “actions” transferred to the Business Court must be remanded if they “commenced” in another court before that date. The issue presented is whether “action” refers to an individual “claim” (so each claim is commenced on a different day) or to the entire lawsuit. The court concludes that “action” refers to the entire lawsuit, and the 2023 Business Court law does not apply; the Business Court did not abuse its discretion by remanding the case to Fort Bend County where it had been filed.
The case arises out a divorce action filed in July, 2024; a counterpetition was filed by the other spouse on September 18, 2024; less than a month later, the couple filed a joint-third party petition against the couple’s business partners, the relators, asserting breach of contract, conversion, fraud, and other claims; the relators removed the case to the Business Court, and the couple moved to remand, based on an argument that the divorce action was commenced before September 1, 2024. The Business Court agreed and remanded the case; relators filed this mandamus petition arguing they should be able to remove the commercial claims in the third-party petition because it was filed after September 1.
Held: Nothing in the original or amended Chapter 25A purports to give a party the right to “a de facto unilateral severance” of claims that belong in the Business Court from those that do not for actions commenced before September 1. Because the removed claims here are part of a civil action filed before September 1, 2024, Texas law did not allow all or part of the action to be removed to the Business Court; this result is not affected by amendments to Chapter 25A made in the recently concluded 89th Regular Session of the Legislature; while Section 25A.021 now permits civil actions commenced before September 1, 2024 to be transferred if they are within the jurisdiction of the Business Court, that requires an agreed motion of a party and permission of the Business Court, requirements which are not met here. The petition for mandamus relief is denied.