Failure to Rule

The Fifth Court granted mandamus relief in a failure-to-rule case in In re Z Resorts Management LLC–an unusual hybrid of a wrongful-death lawsuit and a dispute about child guardianship. One of the motions addressed the authority of a party to represent a minor’s interests in the litigation. The court rejected an argument that an earlier ruling on a related topic prevented the pursuit of this mandamus petition:

Parguian argues that the Rule 12 Motion serves only to relitigate the trial court’s earlier ruling on the Amended Plea. Because both rulings address Parguian’s capacity to represent the Minor Children, we agree that some questions couldoverlap. But other questions will be new to the issue. The trial court will now have the SAPCR order and the intervening Paternal Grandparents before it when making the capacity decision. Moreover, even if circumstances had not evolved with the signing of the SAPCR order and the intervention of the Paternal Grandparents, the trial court always retained its plenary power to change its capacity ruling. Accordingly, requiring the trial court to rule on the Rule 12 Motion is not an empty or redundant directive

No. 05-23-00425-CV (Sept. 11, 2023) (mem. op.)..