Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of December 17, 2007

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. v. Meyer, No. 02-05-00071-CV (Dec. 20,2007) (op. on reh'g) (Gardner, J., joined by Brigham, J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion).: Held: In this marketing-defect case concerning a surgical stapler used on Appellee, Appellant's failure to warn Appellee's surgeon of the risks of using the stapler was not a producing cause of Appellee's injury because the surgeon testified that he had independent knowledge of the risks.; Dissent: Appellee's surgeon's testimony does not conclusively negate the producing cause element; consequently, there was evidence of causation. Because anything more than a scintilla of evidence is legally sufficient to support the jury finding, I dissent from the majority's reversing and rendering on this ground.
Belcher v. State, No. 02-06-00375-CR (Dec. 20, 2007) (Walker, J., joined by Livingston and McCoy, JJ.).: Held: Giving almost total deference to the trial court's historical fact findings, viewing all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, and evaluating the totality of the circumstances, a twenty-seven minute delay of a suspected DWI offender by an officer fully qualified to perform all aspects of a DWI investigation to await the arrival of a designated DWI enforcement officer was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Additionally, because the rules of evidence do not apply to suppression hearings, the trial court did not err in allowing an officer's testimony during a suppression hearing despite the defendant's objection that the officer was not competent under Texas Rule of Evidence 601 to testify.