Court Opinion

ID: 9645617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:30:13.581379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.928340
License: Public Domain

EDELMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
The Texas Supreme Court has made it clear that granting anti-suit injunctions is to be the exception, rather than the rule:
No question exists that Texas courts are empowered to issue injunctions to prevent parties from going forward with litigation in a sister state. The principle of comity, however, requires that courts exercise this equitable power sparingly, and only in very special circumstances. A party seeking to enjoin an out-of-state lawsuit must show that a clear equity demands the Texas court’s intervention.
[[Image here]]
An anti-suit injunction may be justified when the injunction will prevent a multiplicity of suits or will protect a party from vexatious or harassing litigation. A single parallel proceeding in a foreign forum, however, does not constitute a multiplicity nor does it, in itself create a clear equity justifying an anti-suit injunction.
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅝ ‡ ⅜
Nothing in this record persuades us that both of these lawsuits cannot be allowed to proceed simultaneously, as they ordinarily should.
Christensen v. Integrity Ins. Co., 719 S.W.2d 161, 163 (Tex.1986) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Similarly, anti-suit injunctions are not justified by the possibility of inconsistent judgments or the additional expense of litigation; otherwise, such “an injunction would be proper in every case.” Gannon v. Payne, 706 S.W.2d 304, 307-08 (Tex.1986). Instead, “[t]he circumstances of each situation must be carefully examined to determine whether the injunction is required to prevent an irreparable miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 307 (emphasis added).
*811In this case, the majority opinion concludes that the trial court’s issuance of an anti-suit injunction was not an abuse of discretion because: Golden Rule denied benefits and did not begin to act until Harper filed suit; Golden Rule filed the Illinois action four months after Harper filed the Texas case; the record does not reflect that Golden Rule notified Harper that it was going to do so;1 most of the events in question took place, and most of the essential witnesses are located, in Texas, making it more difficult for Harper to defend the declaratory judgment action in Illinois; Golden Rule knew that Harper was an individual and that it would be more difficult for him to litigate in Illinois; Golden Rule had previously tried to transfer venue out of Harris County; the issues in the two actions were the same; and allowing Golden Rule to proceed in Illinois would deprive Harper of his choice of forum.2
In substance, however, these factors amount to nothing more than the added inconvenience and expense which are common to, and largely inevitable in, situations involving a single parallel lawsuit. To the extent they are deemed adequate to justify an anti-suit injunction, then such injunctions will be available in most, if not all, instances of a single parallel lawsuit, and the policy of limiting their application to only “very special circumstances,” where a “clear equity demands the Texas court’s intervention,”3 or where “required to prevent an irreparable miscarriage of justice,”4 will be defeated. Because I believe that those standards were not satisfied in this case, I would reverse the order of the trial court, and order the temporary injunction dissolved.

. Nor did Harper request an abatement from the Illinois court before seeking an anti-suit injunction from the Texas court.

. These factors presumably also support the trial court's conclusion that Golden Rule's lawsuit was "brought for the purpose of harassment.” However, not only were the Harpers residents of Illinois, but the choice-of-law provision of their insurance agreement specified, in effect, that the transaction was governed by the laws of that State. Thus, whatever its true purpose in filing the Illinois action might have been, which cannot be reliably inferred from this record, Golden Rule had a legitimate interest in having the courts of Illinois decide and review the application of its laws to its residents.

. Christensen, 719 S.W.2d at 163.

. Gannon, 706 S.W.2d at 307.