Credit Suisse AG v. Claymore Holdings, on a second appeal about interest after an earlier appeal on the merits, affirmed the Fifth Court’s commitment to stare decisis:

Horizontal stare decisis addresses the respect that a court owes its own precedents. See Mitschke v. Borromeo, 645 S.W.3d 251, 256 (Tex. 2022). A three-judge panel must follow the decisions of earlier panels of the same court unless a higher authority has superseded it. Id. Horizontal stare decisis is nothing more than a manifestation of our commitment to precedent. Id. If this panel overruled the previous panel, there would be nothing that would stop a third panel from overruling this panel. See id. The result would not be order and stability but chaos and unpredictability.

No. 05-24-01124-CV (Oct. 21, 2025) (mem. op.).

My friend Arturo Ayala recently forwarded me yet another interesting article by his agency about the market for supersedeas bonds, “Appeal Bonds in a World of Nuclear Verdicts and Higher Interest Rates.” Worth a look!

Megatel Homes v, Martin, in the context of a dispute about arbitration of a contract to build a home, provides a succinct explanation of contract formation and its legal significance:

The parties’ conduct objectively manifested an agreement on the subject matter and the essential terms of the contract—Megatel would build a house at a specific address for the Martins in exchange for the Sales Price. Thus, we conclude that the parties entered into a contract that defined their respective rights. Both the June Document and July Document include the same arbitration clause that Megatel seeks to enforce, and to which the parties agreed. …  Although the Martins maintain that they would not have entered into the contract if they had known about the alleged misrepresentations made by Megatel, those complaints go to the merits of the lawsuit rather than whether a contract was formed. The terms of that contract, based on the undisputed conduct of the parties, necessarily include the arbitration provision even though it may not include the list of Special Features—a matter we do not reach today.

No. 05-25-00030-CV (Oct. 24, 2025) (emphasis added).

Stein v. Beneficient, again, confirmed an arbitration award under the deferential standard in Texas law. The Fifth Court reminded that an award must be confirmed unless a statutory ground for vacatur or modification is established, and that even a legal or factual mistake by the arbitrator does not justify overturning the result so long as the arbitrator was at least arguably construing the contract.

In particular, the Court held that the arbitrator’s damages methodology, which relied on the respondent’s SEC filings and internal valuations to assess the value of the equity interests at the time of breach, reflected contract-based reasoning rather than impermissible equitable relief. The court rejected challenges about interest calculation,  general methodology, and evidentiary rulings for similar reasons. No. 05-24-00914-CV; Oct. 10, 2025.

MUSA Auto Holdings, LLC v. Frunzi illustrates Texas’s narrow judicial review of arbitration awards when a party claims the arbitrator exceeded his powers.

The Fifth Court emphasized that the question is whether the arbitrator was empowered by the parties’ agreement to decide the issue, and whether the award is rationally connected to that agreement. Under that standard, “even a mistake of fact or law by the arbitrator in the application of substantive law is not a proper ground for vacating an award.”

Applying that standard, the Court held the arbitrator acted within his authority by interpreting and applying the employment agreement’s specific “for Cause” definition—including its “willful” component—to the evidence, rather than imposing an extra-contractual standard.

The appellant’s main argument—that the arbitrator “rewrote” the agreement by requiring proof of scienter and by questioning whether the stated grounds were the “true reason” for the termination—failed because the arbitrator’s analysis was rooted in the contract’s text and was thus “rationally inferable from the parties’ agreement.” No. 05-24-00184-CV; Oct. 1, 2025.

In re Hefflefinger Partnership holds that a trial court, presiding over a post-judgment turnover proceeding, cannot adjudicate the substantive rights of a non-party by declaring a deed of trust void and reallocating sale proceeds. Specifically, the Fifth Court held that the turnover statute is a procedural collection device and does not authorize courts to resolve competing claims to property, or proceeds within the turnover action itself.

Because the statute “has no provision conferring authority on trial courts to decide the substantive rights of the parties properly before it in a turnover proceeding, let alone the rights of strangers to the underlying judgment,” the court held the trial court abused its discretion by voiding the lien and denying the lienholder any share of sale proceeds.

Mandamus relief was appropriate because the affected lienholder—who was not a party to the underlying judgment—lacked an adequate remedy by appeal. No 05-23-01091-CV, Oct. 2, 2025.