Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of March 10, 2014

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.

TeleResource Corp. v. Accor. N. Am., Inc., No. 02-12-00475-CV (Mar. 13, 2014) (Meier, J., joined by Gardner and Walker, JJ.).

Held:  The evidence is legally insufficient to support the jury's award of attorneys' fees to Accor because TeleResource's attorney's testimony that he thought the reasonableness of the fees charged was commensurate on both sides did not constitute either a judicial admission or a quasi-admission.

Donovan v. State, No. 02-11-00033-CR- Opinion , 02-11-00033-CR- Dissent , 02-11-00033-CR- Concurrence and Dissent (Mar. 13, 2014) (Gabriel, J., joined by Livingston, C.J., McCoy and Meier, JJ.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion; Walker, J., concurs and dissents with opinion, joined by Gardner, J.).

Held:  Because Appellant failed to object to the complained-of condition of community supervision at the time it was imposed or at any point between the time the condition was imposed and the subsequent adjudication hearing, Appellant forfeited his claim that the community-supervision condition violated his rights to due process.

Dissent:  Appellant had no opportunity to object to or to forfeit his right to complain about the new trial judge's modification of his community supervision to add sex offender conditions. The records of the sexual offense allegations had been expunged. Appellant timely objected to Strain's requirement that Appellant discuss those facts as well as any uncharged sexual conduct, of which there was no evidence. As the majority acknowledges, Appellant did not quit Strain's program; Strain discontinued Appellant's treatment because of the impasse.

The new trial judge abused her discretion (1) by placing Appellant, who had been acquitted of sexual offenses, on the sex offender caseload, (2) by ordering, without hearing or benefit of counsel, jail confinement as a condition of community supervision, (3) by delegating to Strain, a third party, the authority to set the conditions of community supervision, (4) by requiring Appellant to discuss the details of offenses of which he had been acquitted as well as the related records which had been expunged, (5) by requiring Appellant to discuss uncharged sexual activity which could have been illegal but which was never shown to exist, and (6) by revoking Appellant's community supervision because of his attempt to comply with article 55.03 and his refusal to reveal possibly incriminatory facts of which there was no evidence.

Concurrence and Dissent:  Appellant forfeited any challenge to the trial court's imposition of the sex-offender-treatment condition to his community supervision, but he preserved for this court's review his complaint that the trial court abused its discretion by revoking his community supervision for failure to attend and complete a sex-offender treatment program that required him to discuss and admit to sex offenses of which he had been found not guilty and that had been expunged; he continuously objected to the requirement as soon as he learned of it, the trial court and the State were aware of Appellant's complaint and had even addressed and attempted to resolve it multiple times, and the trial court ultimately ruled on the issue.

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