Texas Business Court Decision – Thursday, August 14, 2025
No. 25-BC08B-0009 Elizabeth Martens v. Lamkin Land & Cattle Company and Stephanie Ezzell (Eighth Division, Judge Stagner)
Jurisdiction/Dominant Jurisdiction/Abatement. Martens and Ezzell are sisters and each owns 50% of the Lamkin Land & Cattle Company (LLCC), a limited liability company. In 2022, Martens sued Ezzell and LLCC for failing to share the proceeds from the $5 million sale of a 200-acre tract in Parker County; the complaint seeks money damages, and the case is currently scheduled for trial in September, 2025. Martens filed this suit in Business Court on June 3, 2025, seeking involuntary termination of the limited liability company, alleging broad mismanagement by Ezzell, including tax fraud, theft of LLCC funds, unauthorized appointment of herself as manager, and exclusion of Martens from governance. Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss, a Plea to the Jurisdiction, and a Plea in abatement, arguing Martens’s claim for involuntary termination is a compulsory claim required to be brought in the Parker County case and thus dates back to 2022, which would effectively deprive the Business Court of jurisdiction based on the Parker County suit’s filing date; alternatively, defendants ask the court to abate the case in deference to the dominant jurisdiction of the Parker County court.
HELD: (1) the Business Court has subject-matter jurisdiction because the case was filed in 2025 and involves claims distinct from the Parker County case; the involuntary termination claim was not mature until recent alleged misconduct occurred and doesn’t arise from the same facts, transaction, or occurrence as the Parker County case; the Parker County case seeks money damages for one property sale, while this case seeks different relief -termination of the limited liability company and sale of four other parcels – based on broader claims of mismanagement, including improper self-appointment, tax fraud, asset diminution, theft of LLCC funds and exclusion of Martens from management; the action does not assert any claim for failure to distribute the proceeds from the Parker County sale, which is the gravamen of the Parker County case;
(2) with respect to the Plea in Abatement, the dominant jurisdiction doctrine does not apply here because the cases are not “inherently interrelated” and because practical considerations make abatement inappropriate (the opinion provides a lengthy and scholarly discussion of the dominant jurisdiction doctrine); while the parties are identical, the issues and claims differ, Martens’s termination claim was not mature at the time the Parker County suit was filed, and the termination claim does not arise out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject of the Parker County suit; with respect to this latter point, the court applies the “logical relationship” test and finds the claims are not related – in fact, as Martens intimated at the hearing, she could win this case without ever mentioning the Parker County property sale; finally, abatement would offer no benefit because regardless of the outcome of the Parker County case, the court must still resolve Martens’s application to terminate the limited liability company, and there is no reason to postpone the inevitable and abate the case.