A group of bills being debated in the Texas Legislature would create two new statewide courts: a new business court and a specialized appeals court. Opponents are calling the plans unnecessary, politically motivated and potentially unconstitutional.
, would create a new state district court to hear business cases involving transactions larger than $10 million. It would have seven judges appointed by the governor every two years, and appeals would be heard by the new appeals court.
“I think our judges are doing an amazing job, having been given a difficult, almost impossible task of having to manage these battleship-sized cases among the normal cases that the rest of the public has to see their rights adjudicated in,” Tankersley said. “Only a small fraction of cases will end up in this [new] court.”
“My clients expressed to me a concern predominantly of why … is there one set of justice for big companies and big claims versus my claim?” Blevins said. “How am I going to be treated in a court where the predominant players are large businesses and law firms?” Texans for Lawsuit Reform general counsel Lee Parsley, the only witness at the hearing to testify in favor of the bill, echoed Huffman’s argument about how voters statewide should be able to select the judges who vet the constitutionality of state laws.
Justice Cory Carlyle of the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals said a new statewide appeals court would be contrary to the Texas tradition of allowing citizens to appeal their cases to locally elected judges. He said it would also take power away from rural areas of the state, noting that of the 18 justices on the current statewide courts, the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, 15 are from Dallas or Harris counties.
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