Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of March 1, 2010

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.

Williams v. State,    No. 02-08-00336-CR     (Mar. 4, 2010)     (Walker, J., joined by McCoy, J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion).

 [Note: both opinions at the same link.]

Held:    The evidence is factually sufficient to support Williams's conviction for driving while intoxicated, and the intoxilyzer results, when coupled with the other evidence of Williams's intoxication at trial, were sufficient to support a jury charge on the "per se" theory of intoxication.

Dissent:     The State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams was intoxicated when he operated the vehicle; the evidence is therefore not factually sufficient to support his conviction.

City of Wichita Falls v. Jenkins,     No. 02-09-00337-CV     (Mar. 4, 2010)    (Livingston, J., joined by Walker and Gardner, JJ.).

Held:    The trial court did not err by denying the City's plea to the jurisdiction because the evidence shows that the City received both the required Tort Claims Act statutory notice and actual notice of appellees' personal injury claims arising from a car accident at which a City employee was at fault.

In re M.M.M.,    No. 02-09-00203-CV     (Mar. 4, 2010)     (Livingston, J., joined by Walker and McCoy, JJ.).

Held:     In this child custody case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to restrict the child's domicile to Texas because there was some evidence of substantive and probative character to favor allowing the child to move with her mother to California. Also, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by ordering the father's visitation to be supervised because the evidence showed that father had threatened to kill mother and had committed family violence against her, and in those circumstances, the family code requires provisions that protect the safety and welfare of the child and allows for supervised visitation. See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 153.004(d) (Vernon Supp. 2009).

« Return to Case Summaries Home Page «