In Infotek Consulting v. Dunn, a special-appearance appeal, the plaintiff made the creative argument that a boilerplate “all other relief” clause in a pleading was a jurisdictional waiver (specifically, this language: “… “respectfully prays that the Court sustain this Special Appearance, enter a final order dismissing it from the instant suit for lack of personal jurisdiction, and for such further relief to which this Defendant may show itself to be entitled.”

No authority supported this argument; therefore, the Fifth Court did not accept it, noting that the “further relief” request was made solely in connection with the defendant’s special appearance. No. 05-26-00028-CV (Oct. 5, 2026)

UATP Management LLC v. Geter holds that companies named as “protected parties” in a trampoline park’s release agreement could compel arbitration, even though they did not sign the agreement.

A mother signed the release for her minor daughter. The release said she “releases, agrees not to sue, and shall indemnify” the park and several affiliated entities, and a separate provision sent disputes to binding arbitration.

The court of appeals had denied the non-signatories’ bid to arbitrate, reasoning that the arbitration clause itself did not mention them. The supreme court found that the non-signatories were specifically named third-party beneficiaries of the contract, which showed the contracting parties’ intent to benefit them. The arbitration provision also applied to undefined “parties” and did not exclude the protected parties named elsewhere in the agreement. No. 24-0905, (Tex. Oct. 16, 2026.)

S&M Drilling LLC v. Davis Water Well LLC, a default-judgment case about the three Craddock factors, holds that a trial court cannot find conscious indifference based only on competing affidavits without an evidentiary hearing.

On that issue, the defendants swore that they did not recall being served, could not find the papers, and failed to answer only because the papers were lost. Plaintiff’s counsel swore that the defendants knew of the suit and cited conversations with them about it. The Fifth Court reminded that the movant’s facts “must be accepted as true unless the opponent requests and obtains an evidentiary hearing,” and the facts established by the defendants were sufficient if taken as true.

Similarly, the Court held that the defendants set up a meritorious defense, again citing the facts established by the defendants’ affidavits. No. 05-25-00765-CV (Tex. App.—Dallas Sept. 17, 2026).

Inspired by the recent BAFFC annual conference in New Orleans, I pulled together some short articles that I have written recently about appellate advocacy, and offer them to you in this this e-book. I hope you find it useful in your practice, and encourage you to share it with a friend or colleague if you do enjoy it.

CreateAI Holdings, Inc. v. Bot Auto TX Inc. affirmed the denial of a temporary injunction in a TUTSA case involving two autonomous-trucking companies. The Fifteenth Court held, inter alia:

• As to a sensor array, the court found that “CreateAI publicized the exact locations and varieties of its sensors in an investor presentation in 2022,” so “an external sensor array on a self-driving vehicle may be no more secret than side-view mirrors of a traditional vehicle”
• As to a data-labeling “semantic regime,” “the record contains evidence that CreateAI’s semantics regime and data annotation conventions are of no use to Bot Auto” given that Bot Auto’s “transformer neural network… has no need to engage in large-scale manual data annotation and no use for data conventions developed by CreateAI.” (In other words, it was a later-generation AI model.)
• As to safety technology, “[r]edundancy itself is not a trade secret,” and that “the steering requirements of the two companies are not identical,” so “[e]ven if identical requirements were sufficient to prove the misappropriation of trade secrets, they simply describe the standard to which a product is built, not the means by which a product reaches that standard.”

The Court also questioned whether there was evidence of irreparable injury that could not be compensated with a reasonable-royalty award. No. 15-25-00001-CV /(Sept. 15, 2026).

Personal jurisdiction was rejected over an out-of-state freight broker in Online Transport System, Inc. v. Hanks, which focused on the “operative facts” of the plaintiff’s claim.

The Fifth Court held that “of the purposeful availment allegations …, the only act that has any connection to Hanks’s claims is that Model 2 Transport is a Texas-based entity,” but “that fact has nothing to do with the operative facts of Hanks’s claims, which is whether OLTS was negligent in entering into a brokerage contract with Model 2 Transport to transport product to Colorado.” Likewise, the Court held that OLTS’s broader Texas footprint — brokering with “over 1200 Texas motor carriers” and deriving “7% of its overall revenue” from Texas-related loads — “will not be at issue at trial, nor do Hanks’s claims principally concern any of those facts.” No. 05-26-00215-CV (Sept. 14, 2026).