Source: https://www.reverseandrender.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:28:45+00:00

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In a decision that upends decades of open meetings law, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibiting a government official from circumventing the Act through a “walking quorum” or “daisy chain” discussion outside of a public meeting is unconstitutionally vague.
The Texas Open Meetings Act requires every meeting of a governmental body to be open to the public except as authorized. Tex. Gov’t Code § 551.002. A “meeting” is defined as any deliberation or gathering at which a quorum of the governmental body is present and public business or policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control is discussed or decided. Id. § 551.001(4). All public officials must watch a mandatory video or attend other training under the Act. Id. § 551.005. A public official commits a crime if they engage in an unauthorized closed meeting. Id. § 551.144.
Tex. Atty Gen. Op. No. GA-0326 (2005).
A county judge was indicted for violating this section and challenged the provision as overbroad in violation of the First Amendment and unconstitutionally vague. The trial court dismissed the indictment but the court of appeals held the statute constitutional. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed.
The court held that the statute potentially implicated the free speech rights of public officials and applied a heightened standard of review. It held that the statute was “hopelessly indeterminate by being too abstract” with regard to what it meant to circumvent the Act. The court acknowledged the Attorney General Opinion but found that even if the Act could be limited to that definition, there were still many ways in which a “daisy chain” or “walking quorum” could be defined, citing opinions from other states. It concluded that section 551.143 was unconstitutionally vague on its face and affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the indictment.
Unless and until the legislature amends the statute to specify conduct that improperly circumvents the Texas Open Meetings Act, public officials are no longer at risk of prosecution for having daisy chain or walking quorum meetings outside of the public eye.
The Fifth Circuit has affirmed a denial of all attorney fees under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act based on the “outrageous facts” and the conduct of the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Crystal Davis alleged that Credit Bureau of the South violated Texas and Federal Debt Collection Practices Acts by using the words “credit bureau” in its name when attempting to collect a water bill of $107.29. Davis also alleged that the defendant misrepresented itself in a phone call she recorded. No actual damages were claimed. The district court granted summary judgment and awarded her $1,000 in statutory damages under the federal act. Davis then filed a motion seeking $130,410 in attorney fees under 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3), which provides that a person who violates the Act is liable for actual and statutory damages and a reasonable attorney’s fee as determined by the court.
The attorney-fee motion was referred to the magistrate judge, who refused to award any fees finding that the case involved “special circumstances” that would render an award of fees unjust. He found that the claim “was created by counsel for the purpose of generating, in counsel’s own words, an ‘incredibly high’ fee request.” Davis, who lived in Louisiana, was also found to have created a false claim under Texas law. While employed at her lawyer’s law firm, she requested Defendant to mail her water bill to her parents’ address in Texas. Davis’ recorded phone call with the Defendant was made using the law firm’s recorder and in the presence of her attorney. The magistrate judge found that Plaintiff’s counsel believed that prevailing on a simple claim under the FDCPA “gives rise to a blank check for attorney’s fees” and had treated the fee request as an opening bid. The magistrate judge was “stunned” by the request for $130,000 in fees for a simple case governed by a Fifth Circuit opinion directly on point. He found substantial duplicative and excessive fees by multiple counsel, and that the requested hourly rate of $450 was “excessive by orders of magnitude” for such a straightforward matter. The district judge overruled objections to the magistrate’s ruling and Davis appealed.
The Fifth Circuit acknowledged that attorney fees in a successful FDCPA action are mandatory and that no Fifth Circuit opinion had allowed zero fees where the Plaintiff recovered actual or statutory damages. However, it cited numerous cases that deny fees in similar contexts. The Fifth Circuit has found that “special circumstances” can justify not awarding fees in civil rights cases. Romain v. Walters, 856 F.3d 402, 407 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429 (1983)). The Third and Fourth Circuits permit outright denial of fees under the FDCPA in “unusual circumstances.” Graziano v. Harrison, 950 F.2d 107, 113 (3d Cir. 1991); Carroll v. Wolpoff & Abramson, 53 F.3d 626, 628 (4th Cir. 1995). The First Circuit has upheld the denial of fees under the Truth in Lending Act under “the most unusual of circumstances” such as bad faith, obdurate conduct, unjust hardship, or other special circumstances. de Jesus v. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, 918 F.2d 232, 234 & n.4 (1st Cir. 1990). The concurring opinion in a D.C. Circuit case suggests that even though a reasonable fee is required under FDCPA, “the statutory text does not preclude a court from deciding — consistent with its inherent authority to protect the integrity of its proceedings, Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 42–51 (1991)—that a ‘reasonable’ fee in response to an exorbitant request is a nominal amount approaching zero.” Baylor v. Mitchell Rubenstein & Assocs., P.C. , 857 F.3d 939, 958 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (Henderson, J., concurring).
The Fifth Circuit concurred with the magistrate judge’s findings. It criticized the requested hourly rate noting that the pleadings and brief on appeal were replete with grammatical errors, formatting issues, and improper citations. It agreed that no incentive for bringing claims under the FDCPA was needed in this case since the plaintiff’s counsel “essentially created her claim.” It disapproved of “utilizing technical violations of the FDCPA solely as a means for generating attorney’s fees” and concluded: “This simply cannot be tolerated. Bottom-line: the FDCPA does not support avaricious efforts of attorneys seeking a windfall.” It held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Davis was not entitled to attorney’s fees, or that the reasonable attorney’s fee was $0.
Davis v. Credit Bureau of the South, No. 17-41136 (Fifth Cir. Nov. 16, 2018).
The Texas Supreme Court resolved a longstanding debate and an unusual split in lower courts by declaring that there is no cause of action for intentional interference with inheritance.
One issue for those victimized by persons taking undue advantage of the elderly is what remedies are available when an inheritance is interfered with. Last year the Texas Supreme Court held that neither the Legislature nor the Supreme Court had recognized a tort for interference with an inheritance but left open whether the court might do so in the future. Kinsel v. Lindsay, 526 S.W.3d 411, 423 (Tex. 2017).
Subsequent to Kinsel the two Houston Courts of Appeal entered opposite holdings. The First District held that a cause of action for intentional interference with an inheritance exists. Yost v. Fails, 534 S.W.3d 517, 529-30 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, no pet.). Within weeks, the Fourteenth District rejected Yost and declined to recognize such a cause of action. Rice v. Rice, 533 S.W.3d 58, 62-63 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2017, no pet.). Both Houston courts have appellate jurisdiction over the same ten-county districts. Cases are randomly assigned between them, meaning that parties and judges in those counties were subject to simultaneous and opposing rules.
Jack Archer executed a will in 1991 that left the bulk of his estate to his brother Richard and his children (the Archers) and the rest to charities. In 1998, Jack suffered a stroke and became delusional and sometimes disoriented. Jack’s friend, Ted Anderson, hired a lawyer and had Jack sign new wills and trust documents leaving his entire estate to the charities. While Jack was still alive, the Archers sued seeking a declaration that Jack lacked mental capacity to execute the new wills and trusts. The charities agreed not to probate the new wills in exchange for the Archers’ agreement to give them Jack’s coin collection worth $588,000 and pay their attorney fees.
After Jack died, his 1991 will was probated and the Archers received their bequests. They sued Anderson’s estate for intentional interference with their inheritance. Unlike many elder abuse cases, Anderson never personally profited from his actions and the Archers received their inheritance under Jack’s prior will. But they alleged damages consisting of the $588,000 they had to give the charities in settlement plus $2.8 million in attorney fees incurred in avoiding Jack’s post-1991 wills and trusts.
The dissenters agreed with the majority that the Archers had adequate remedies without a claim for intentional interference with inheritance. But they argued forcefully that it was too soon to reject such a tort for all time, citing statistics on elder abuse including abuse within guardianships. The dissenters argued that the Court could not state that current law affords adequate remedies for all situations where elderly persons are wrongfully relieved of assets intended for others. They would have withheld a decision about whether to recognize or reject the tort until the full effects of Kinsel could be seen and evaluated.
There’s a perception in some appellate circles that if the court of appeals has issued a “memorandum opinion,” the chances of getting review by the Supreme Court of Texas are minuscule. A look at the supreme court’s statistics might change a few minds.
The breakdown of granted petitions for the 4-year period from 2014 through 2017 shows that approximately 1/3 of the petitions granted involved memorandum opinions. In 2016, the percentage was approximately 40% of the total petitions granted. Those percentages are strikingly high if memorandum opinions are supposed to be reserved for mundane settled legal questions. The percentages may give practitioners hope that an opinion labelled as a “memorandum opinion” is not the end of the appellate road.

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