Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of March 19, 2012

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.

Ibenyenwa v. State, No. 02-10-00142-CR (Mar. 22, 2012) (op. on reh'g) (Livingston, C.J., joined by Dixon W. Holman (Senior Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment); Dauphinot, J., concurs and dissents with opinion).  [Note: both opinions at the same link.]

Held: Appellant failed to preserve his challenge to the constitutionality of section 21.02 of the penal code. Additionally, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting a videotaped interview of the child complainant pursuant to rule 107, and over Appellant's rule 403 objection, because the defense's questioning of the interviewer left the impression that the interviewer had possibly manipulated the interview by asking repetitive questions even though she was not supposed to and by excessively repeating the child's answers.

Concurrence and Dissent: A facially unconstitutional law may be challenged at trial, on appeal, or collaterally regardless whether Appellant preserved it.

H.E.B., L.L.C. v. Ardinger, No. 02-11-00092-CV (Mar. 22, 2012) (Meier, J., joined by Walker and Gabriel, JJ.).

Held: The trial court did not abuse its discretion by awarding Ardinger $1,300,405.04 on his money-had-and-received claim against H.E.B. because, among other things, although H.E.B. provided consideration to DSC as part of the March 2004 purchase agreement, H.E.B. and DSC agreed to rescind the purchase agreement but H.E.B. retained the $1,300,405.04 for no consideration.

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