Abbott appoints first judges to new statewide business appeals court

I’d forgotten about this.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday appointed three conservative justices to the new 15th Court of Appeals, which lawmakers created last year to oversee appeals involving the state, challenges to the constitutionality of state laws and cases from business courts.

Proponents say the new appeals court will improve judicial efficiency, place people with business expertise on the bench and allow issues with implications statewide be heard by judges elected statewide. Critics say Republicans created the new courts so businesses and the state could avoid having their cases heard by judges in urban counties where Democrats dominate local judicial races.

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Scott Brister will serve as chief justice alongside Justices Scott Field and April Farris. They will each serve two-year terms from Sept. 1 through 2026.

“These highly experienced individuals will serve a vital role in our state’s effort to ensure that the Texas Constitution and state statutes are applied uniformly throughout Texas and that businesses have a sophisticated and efficient process to resolve their disputes,” Abbott said in a news release.

The Legislature created the new statewide appeals court last year, granting it jurisdiction to hear cases brought by or against the state of Texas; agencies, departments or boards of the executive branch; or state universities, including any of these entities’ officers. It will also hear appeals out of a new state district court that was created by lawmakers last year to consider cases involving businesses across Texas with disputes valued at more than $10 million. The appeals court will ultimately have five judges, each elected statewide. For its first three years, it will be made up of Abbott’s three appointees.

The bills’ backers — mostly Republicans in the Legislature, in addition to some corporate attorneys who testified in support of the measures — said that the new courts would help reduce case backlogs and ensure that judges hearing complex business cases would have specific expertise in business law. Supporters similarly made arguments for having appellate judges who are familiar with the nuance and complexity of matters that impact state government and all Texans.

But the bills’ opponents argued that Republicans, who control the Legislature, passed the legislation as a way to circumvent Democrat-dominated courts in big cities. Opponents also said that the new business court also created last year and whose appeals the 15th Circuit will hear, would actually bog cases down as parties fight over which court a case should belong in. And some warned that having the governor appoint judges every two years to the business court would leave the system vulnerable to political pressure from parties with cases before the court, who might look to influence the governor’s selections.

See here for some background. One point raised as these courts were created is that new appellate courts can only be created by constitutional amendment. I still expect there will be a lawsuit filed over this, for which in theory this court itself would hear the appeal. I’m guessing the Supreme Court will get it in reality.

That court, assuming it survives the litigation against it, will have elections for its first three Justices in 2026. There’s also the matter of the district-level business courts, which will have one or two judges for them, all appointed by the Governor for two-year terms. Yes, those of you who hate that we elect judges in this state can rejoice over finally getting some non-elected judges. According to the text of the bill that created these things, there are eleven such courts around the state, each serving the counties of the corresponding Judicial Administrative Region. Harris County, as I’m sure you knew without having to look it up, is in the Eleventh Judicial Region, along with Fort Bend, Galveston, Brazoria, Wharton, and Matagorda.

Abbott has been busy appointing these judges as well. From the First, Third, and Eighth:

Presiding over the Dallas court, administratively referred to as the First Business Court Division, will be Andrea Bouressa and William “Bill” Whitehill. The court division is comprised of the counties of Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Kaufman and Rockwall.

[…]

In Fort Worth, the Eighth Business Court Division judges will be Jerry Bullard and Brian Stagner. The division is comprised of the counties of Archer, Clay, Montague, Palo Pinto, Parker, Somervell, Stephens, Tarrant, Wichita, Wise and Young.

[…]

In Austin, the Third Business Court Division judges will be Melissa Andrews and Patrick Sweeten. The division is comprised of the counties of Austin, Bell, Blanco, Bosque, Burnet, Caldwell, Colorado, Comal, Comanche, Coryell, Falls, Fayette, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Hamilton, Hays, Hill, Lampasas, Lavaca, Llano, McLennan, Milam, Navarro, Robertson, San Saba, Travis and Williamson.

For the Fourth Region:

Gov. Greg Abbott named former Bexar County Commissioner Marialyn Barnard and San Antonio attorney Stacy Sharp to oversee the 4th Business Court Division Thursday. Including Bexar County, the court will serve 22 counties spanning from Eagle Pass to Port Aransas.

Our home turf, the Eleventh Region, doesn’t have any appointees yet; this Chron story is mostly about the statewide court and also mentions the Third Region appointees but doesn’t say where they’ll be serving. These five regions, ours included, each get two judges. The rest, made up primarily of smaller counties, get one. It’s all a little ridiculous, but here we are.

UPDATE: Since I drafted this, Abbott has appointed Sofia Adrogué and Grant Dorfman to be judges of the Eleventh Business Court Division, effective September 1, 2024.

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• Were these courts really necessary?
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