600 Commerce
Commercial Litigation
in the Dallas Court
of Appeals

Reading the Cards About SCOTX and Masks

August 16, 2021

Relying on my fortune-telling skills (right), I offer these thoughts on the recent Texas Supreme Court orders in the ongoing mask litigation:

  1. The court could have effectively ended the litigation with a complete stay, as it did last week in the “arrest the legislators” case.
  2. It didn’t do that. Instead, it let temporary injunction hearings go forward in both Bexar and Dallas Counties. The Bexar hearing is today.
  3. A decent guess is that there is division of opinion on the court and this order is a rough compromise, among: (a) Justices who would have ruled for the Governor (who “got something” in the form of the initial TROs being vacated; (b) Justices who want to further consider the evidence (or lack thereof) (and who “got something” by the TI hearings proceeding; and (c) Justices who were willing to “kick the can down the road” until after the TI hearings.