Texas Supreme Court Orders & Opinion 1/23/09

The Texas Supreme Court issued one decision with this week’s exceptionally short set of regular Friday orders.

In In re Watkins (No. 06-0653), the Court denied mandamus relief from an order granting the plaintiff a 30-day extension of time for filing an expert report under CPRC § 74.351(a).  The Court released concurring opinions from Chief Justice Jefferson (joined by Justice O’Neill), Justice Johnson, and Justice Willett.

Justice Brister’s majority opinion acknowledged the concurrences’ discussion of whether the plaintiff originally served a deficient report or no report at all—significant to whether the defendant had a right to an interlocutory appeal—but concluded that mandamus was unavailable either way.  (The court of appeals dismissed the defendant’s interlocutory appeal for want of jurisdiction, a ruling the defendant did not challenge in the supreme court.)