Texas Plaintiffs Petition: Fill & Download for Free

The issue here is drive-through early voting, and particularly in Harris County, home to 4.7 million Texans.The governor of Texas has ordered that Harris County be limited to a single drop box. Texas also went to court in attempt to block the County from having these drive-through polling locations. Those attempts failed, but now a Republican legislator has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to order that the memory cards for all the drive-through votes, some 117,000 of them, be erased and the votes lost. All members of the Texas Supreme Court are Republicans, by the way.The issue is somewhat technical. Texas has a rule, quite like what we have in Virginia, about curbside voting. It says that two poll workers go outside, collect the ballot, and then bring it inside to be scanned or put in a ballot box. The petition demands that curbside rules be applied to these drive-through polling sites. Harris county argues that they are simply regular polling places, arranged differently and outdoors. The Texas Secretary of State has already approved the procedure, and two previous appeals to the court to stop it were rejected. This is a blatant attempt on the part of the Republican lawmakers to steal the election.What do I think? I think Texans would be crazy to continue to put Republicans in statewide offices.See also:Texas Supreme Court Weighing Whether To Throw Out More Than 100,000 Drive-Thru VotesNew challenge seeks to void thousands of Harris County drive-thru votesThe Battle Over Drive-Through Voting In Harris County (Oct. 29, 2020) | Houston Public MediaUpdate: The Texas Supreme Court has rejected the petition to delete the ballots. A federal judge heard the petition today (11/2) and said that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit, but that there was a question whether voting from a car was legal under Texas law. [I have a sneaking suspicion who the judge is — need to look it up.]Yup, it was judge Hanen, top Texas judge on every right-wing litigant’s judge shopping list. But he’s not crazy, and he dismissed the thing.

Back in the early 90’s, I had a lawsuit against two giant insurance companies who had a very bad agent. We represented the plaintiffs, 7 regular individuals who’d been duped by this guy. Our folks had claims with statutory damages exceeding $100,000,000 and we filed the case down in far South Texas.It was brutal in every respect. Two insurance behemoths have massive amounts of money and, when faced with the prospect of mind-boggling damages, they get very excitable.Add in the fact that this was the early ‘90’s when juries in South Texas had been hammering corporate America with huge verdicts on a regular basis, and the stage was set for a full-on, battle to the death.Co. B and its law firm are the bad guys in this story. Insurance companies have bad reputations to begin with, but what Co. B and its lawyers did in this case was truly despicable.Original lead counsel got sick and Lawyer “U” took over. In 30+ years of practice, he still tops my list as the MOST unpleasant, untrustworthy, and unprofessional lawyer I’ve had the misfortune to deal with.With Lawyer U at the reins, Co. B took positions, filed motions, and made arguments so ridiculous it would make a normal lawyer weep and hide his eyes. They pursued the most abusive defense strategy I’ve seen - all without even a slap on the wrist.Every time we got a trial setting, Co. B asked for a continuance - the reasons went from half-assed to absurd, but the Judge kept granting them. On their 4th try, the Judge grew a spine, denied it, and set a “final” trial date - August 12th.In June, I filed our final Amended Petition. In my list of Agent D’s fraudulent representations, I threw in a sentence about how he told our clients his “arbitrage” business and insurance went hand in hand to produce profits, etc., etc. Everything except the word “arbitrage” had appeared in all our previous petitions.A week later (31 days before trial) Co. B filed a “Notice of Removal” claiming this was now a federal case. Why? - based the word “arbitrage” Lawyer U argued the suit now involved federal securities laws.Lawyer U did this for two reasons:First, it stopped the case from going to trial - filing that Notice automatically transferred jurisdiction to the federal court, the state court couldn’t do anything; andSecond, getting a case sent back (remanded) from federal to state court could easily take months and maybe longer -Federal courts in South Texas were packed with criminal cases and those took precedence. Getting a hearing in a civil matter was a nightmare.Co. B’s lawyer knew that and thought he was buying his client an indefinite amount of time by putting this case on ice in federal limbo.I went berserk - my partner had to lock me in a conference room to keep me from driving to San Antonio and doing grievous bodily injury to Lawyer U and his minions.Whether he came up with it himself or at his client’s behest - Lawyer U and Co. B were both equally guilty of using this unethical, sleazy, abusive defense “strategy.”Now, for the good news. The lawyer that brought us in to this case was a heavy-hitting, well-known PI attorney down in the Valley and he had lots of powerful friends. I called him to tell him the trial was off and explained why. All he said was - “Get your motion ready and get it down here.”The next morning, I flew down and filed my rather vehemently worded Motion for Remand. By the time my return flight landed - there was a Notice from the Court - our Motion was set for hearing the next week.I wasn’t going to bribe anyone or buttonhole the court clerk in the grocery store, but I certainly wasn’t going to stop our co-counsel from telling his golfing-buddies* about this horrendous abuse of the system.The South Texas legal community is a close-knit group and they don’t appreciate being played. By the time I filed my motion, every lawyer in McAllen had probably heard the story.End of the story - At the hearing, we argued first. The judge didn’t look happy, asked lots of questions, and seemed hostile to our position. I was sitting next to a lawyer and I guess I looked nervous.He leaned over and said “I’ve seen him do this lots of times - it means he’s about to fuck the OTHER lawyer.” And that’s just what happened. Before Lawyer U even introduced himself, the judge looked up and said:“What were you thinking? One word DOES NOT give you the right to add this case to MY busy docket - it’s a ridiculous argument and if you came up with it, you need to go back to law school. Motion for remand granted - I’ll let Judge H know and tell him you’re anxious to start trial as soon as possible.”*None of whom were federal judges, staff, or otherwise connected with the federal court in McAllen.UPDATE - 10/26 - The true extent of Co. B’s “bad behavior” went way beyond just filing bullshit pleadings, but that didn’t come to light for a few more years. It involved our state court judge (I’ll call him “Judge B”):Our trial dragged along for 7 months - 2–4 hours a day. Then, Judge B said we’d “recess” for 6 weeks and one of our client’s spun out - claimed he was “on the take,” the Texas Rangers were called in and there was a grand jury investigation. Judge B was “cleared”, but it pissed him off - he declared a mistrial, flushed 7 months down the drain and withdrew from our case. (An assigned judge tried it 6 months later - the “real” trial only took 4 weeks).About a year later, Judge B’s alleged “corruption” came up for doing something else (don’t remember what). This time, he and his entire court staff were investigated. They subpoenaed financial records from the judge’s clerk - that’s when things got interesting.Turns out, Judge B’s clerk and her husband owned an extremely successful landscaping company. Her husband was such a good salesman that, right around the time our trial started, he’d persuaded Insurance Co. B to purchase $25,000* of trees, bushes, and plants. Down in South Texas, $25,000 buys A LOT of greenery.The clerk’s husband “couldn’t find” his receipts, “didn’t remember” who he bought it from or where he’d delivered it. Now, Insurance Co. B’s main office was in NY, the closest regional office was in Houston (it didn’t get any plants) and no records turned up showing where any of it went.They never managed to link Judge B directly to any shady deals and he dodged the corruption charges. But the locals knew he was dirty and it cost him the next election - so at least he wasn’t a judge after that.I thought about it alot and my theory is this - Judge B’s scam, if I’m right, was pretty smart - I don’t think Insurance Co. B “bought” a result, I think they “bought” delay and that’s what Judge B provided - 2–4 hour days, never a full week of trial, and stopping in the middle for a 6 week “recess”? WTF?The jury was already falling apart - 7 months out of work, no end in sight, and then 6 weeks off - I think lots of the jurors would just disappear, not come back, and “bingo” - mistrial. Have to start all over again when Judge B ‘found’ the time - what a deal for Insurance Co. B! Scumbags.*That’s about $43,000 today.

No, I don’t agree with the generalization of “legal scholars.” First your citing of CNN saying, “Legal scholars say that's highly unlikely.” is stupid (I don’t mean “you” as in the questioner is stupid, I mean CNN is stupid) on it’s face. What legal scholars? Is that one legal scholar sitting on a panel at CNN, a network that has spent 3 years doing nothing but attacking Trump? How many legal scholars, which legal scholars?It seems quite interesting that they leave out the opinion of a very important “legal scholar,” such as Justice Thomas. I would think that legal scholar may have quite the sway in some circles and he has a disdain for these injunctions. This is not something Barr or Trump came up with on their own just because they don’t like injunctions.It is not just the Supreme Court either. Here is what a “nutty,” 9th Circuit opinion had to say :The U.S. Supreme Court, Wallace noted, has previously said that such injunctions can be detrimental to the development of the law because they can deprive appellate courts of multiple perspectives when coming to a novel legal issue. Wallace also wrote that nationwide injunctions can keep nonparties who fail to intervene in a first-moving action from participating in litigation that directly effects them.[1]In fact, these statements were put out in response to a decision made by an Obama appointed judge whose name might be familiar if you have read recent news. This was a case remanded back to him, to take a second shot at a bad decision he made. A guy named Gilliam.Justice Thomas, in his concurrence with the ruling in favor of the Trump Travel ban (via Lawfare) states:Justice Thomas first emphasizes the negative impact of nationwide injunctions, which first emerged in the 1960s, arguing that they prevent “legal questions from percolating through the federal courts”; promote forum shopping; and make “every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch.” He then questioned the district court’s specific authority to issue such injunctions, concluding that they “appear to be inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the power of Article III courts” because:No statute expressly grants the district courts the power to issue universal injunctions; andThe court’s inherent constitutional authority is limited by the traditional rules of equity at the time of the founding (Guaranty Trust Co. v. York), which did not provide for universal injunctions.Justice Thomas goes on to explain why the founding generation viewed equity with suspicion, emphasizing that U.S. courts have traditionally understood judicial power as the “the power to render judgements in individual cases.” (Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn.) “As a general rule,” he says, “American courts of equity did not provide relief beyond the parties to the case. If their injunctions advantaged nonparties, that benefit was merely accidental.” He concluded by finding universal injunctions to be both “legally and historically dubious.”[2]One of the negative aspects that Thomas pointed out is of a particular problem we are facing today. Democrats use this well and is why we see so many of cases challenging the Trump administration coming out of a particular region of the country.“promote forum shopping”This is why we see cases going to particular judges and within particular Districts and Circuit Courts of Appeals. The 9th Circuit is always popular, and now we see a new case that Democrats are challenging going in front of Gilliam. Democrats know they have a sympathetic ear in the Obama appointed judge. I’m not going to pretend that Republicans do not have their favorites. They do, but no one has faced such demonstratively biased judge shopping as President Trump.The brief from CNN likes to throw out that Republicans petitioned for Nationwide injunctions during the Obama Administration. That is true but guess what? Democrats cried foul just as Republicans are now. In the case of DAPA (an attempted expansion of DACA, this time for the parents of those under DACA) States took aim for a nationwide injunction, and were successful. The Obama Justice Department argued against Nationwide Injunctions :The district court’s injunction is drastically overbroad and thus is invalid even if some injunction were warranted. Twenty-four States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories are not parties to this action, and a dozen States participated as amici below to oppose plaintiffs’ challenge and demonstrate the adverse effects of the district court’s injunction. Yet the district court enjoined the Guidance on a nationwide basis, barring implementation in States that do not oppose the policies set forth in the Guidance and even in States that actively support them.[3]Now, it is just like CNN to put up a dubious distinction like “Legal Scholars say…” Why? Because, like I said above, which ones. The “legal scholars say…” argument is fool’s gold because legal scholars also differ in what they say. Take a look at SCOTUSblog and you will find that not ALL scholars say what CNN wants them to say. They show there are scholars on both sides of the issue. As for legal scholars that challenge CNN’s dubious claim to try and hoodwink you into attacking the current Admin with a generalization, they get more specific:Professors Samuel Bray, Michael Morley and Wasserman oppose nationwide injunctions in all or most cases. These scholars argue that such injunctions encourage forum shopping and politicize the judiciary, allowing plaintiffs to hand pick a single district-court judge who can then set policy for the nation. (It was no coincidence that Obama’s policies were challenged in the “red state” of Texas, and Trump’s in the “blue states” of California, Hawaii and Maryland.) They observe that nationwide injunctions are inconsistent with a judicial system that denies precedential value to district court decisions and typically requires named plaintiffs to meet class-certification requirements before obtaining relief on a collective basis. They also point out that such rulings put pressure on the Supreme Court to decide cases before they have been thoroughly debated in the lower courts. For all these reasons, these critics argue, courts should enjoin defendants from enforcing a law only against the plaintiffs in a particular case.[4]Bottom line is to look deeper than the partisan dope sellers at CNN. They are like the corner drug dealer selling DNC crack. There are divergent opinions on the issue. There really isn’t so much of a giant push to rid the courts of the nationwide injunction, it is more of a push to define the circumstances of cases in order to limit them. The courts have never really addressed the issue in a substantial way because they weren’t commonplace as they are becoming today.Footnotes[1] 9th Circuit Warns Judges About Setting Nationwide Injunctions | The Recorder[2] The Supreme Court Travel Ban Ruling: A Summary[3] Nationwide Injunctions, Immigration, and Civil Rights Litigation[4] Academic highlight: The debate over nationwide injunctions - SCOTUSblog