Southern Methodist
University · Dallas

SMU Corporate Governance Initiative

The Hilltop Docket

Intelligence on the Texas Business Court — opinions, dockets, hearings, doctrine. A research publication of the SMU Corporate Governance Initiative at the Cox School of Business and the Dedman School of Law.

Issue No. 12 Monday, August 3, 2026 Week in Review

Editorial Independence The Hilltop Docket has no financial, advisory, or other relationship with any litigant before the Texas Business Court, or with re:SearchTX or its parent. Interpretations are the authors' own and do not represent the positions of SMU, the Cox School, or the Dedman School. Any future conflict will be disclosed on Page One.

Issue No. 12 · Covering July 27–August 3, 2026

The treatments owed are delivered — and the bench kept writing. This issue carries twelve full opinion treatments: the line-by-line readings of 2026 Tex. Bus. 43 through 50 promised in Issue No. 11, every one coded from the signed PDF with paragraph citations in the court’s preferred format, and first treatments of four new opinions — 2026 Tex. Bus. 51 through 54 — signed July 28 and 29, three of them out of the Eighth Division’s chambers in a single day. The week’s doctrine: the corpus’s first receiver-immunity holding, a statute-of-frauds land-description rule now stated twice in seven days by the same judge, and a constructive-trust fight over Texas Rangers ownership units resolved on an exculpatory clause.

Coverage in this issue: full doctrinal treatments of all twelve opinions, 43–54, replacing Issue No. 11’s index-description previews; a For the Record section logging three register-metadata defects our double-coding passes surfaced; the corpus reconciliation promised in Issue No. 11, now complete at 117 opinions site-wide; the calendar of record with a fee-application wave now running; and the threads carried forward. All citations Bluebook 21st; all primary sources hyperlinked.

  • Wk-12Week in review · August 3
  • 4New opinions posted since Issue No. 11
  • 54Latest 2026 Tex. Bus. citation
  • 12Full treatments in this issue

From the editor

The debt is paid — twelve opinions, read the way we said we would read them.

Issue No. 11 made one promise above the others: that the eight opinions it could only preview from the court’s staff-prepared index descriptions — 2026 Tex. Bus. 43 through 50 — would be read line-by-line under our human-review protocol and treated from the opinion text in this issue. That work is done. Each of the eight treatments below is coded from the signed PDF, carries paragraph citations in the court’s preferred format, and passed verification across multiple coding passes — including a double-coding pass that surfaced three defects in the court’s own register metadata, which we log in For the Record rather than silently normalize.

The court, meanwhile, did not wait for us. Four more opinions were signed in the two days after Issue No. 11 went out: Revere Tactical Opportunities Fund IV v. Lee-Wen (51) in the First Division on July 28, and then — in a single day, July 29 — Simpson v. Simpson (52), Riverside Homebuilders v. FG Aledo Development (53), and Fischer v. Fischer (54), all three from Eighth Division chambers in Fort Worth. The per-year corpus now runs contiguously through 2026 Tex. Bus. 54.

Two doctrinal lines organize the twelve. The first is the statute of frauds as applied to land descriptions that depend on someone else’s future act: Judge Stagner’s Village Crossing (49, sitting by assignment in the Eleventh) and Riverside Homebuilders (53, in his own Eighth) state the same rule seven days apart — a buyer’s selection right must be unqualified, depending on no further agreements, approvals, or discretionary choices by other persons — and together they are the clearest emerging rule in the corpus. The second is protective immunity at the boundary of court-ordered roles: Fischer holds, for the first time in a Business Court opinion, that a court-appointed receiver’s derived judicial immunity survives even the later vacatur of the appointing order — a holding that will travel, and one we read against the Fifteenth Court’s attorney-immunity mandamus in In re Frank Jackson covered last issue.

Finally, the reconciliation promised in Issue No. 11 is complete: opinions 41 through 54 have been ingested into our opinion data files, and the corpus counts displayed across this site — 117 opinions, 52 published and 65 memorandum — no longer trail the court’s index.

On the bench · the owed eight, treated in full

2026 Tex. Bus. 43 through 50, read line-by-line — as promised.

Source status. Unlike the index-description previews these treatments replace, every entry below is coded from the signed opinion PDF under our human-review protocol — source tier A, PDF-verified — with paragraph citations in the court’s preferred format. Caption, citation, division, authoring judge, signing date, and docket number are verified against the opinion’s own face; where the court’s register metadata disagrees with the printed opinion, the opinion controls and the conflict is logged in For the Record below.

Cobalt Falcon v. AXS Investments — liability decided under Delaware law; the August 17 jury trial is damages-only.

2026 Tex. Bus. 43 (1st Div.) (mem. op.) · Bouressa, J. · July 14, 2026 · No. 25-BC01A-0023 · 25 ¶¶

Partial summary judgment granted (liability)

Traditional partial summary judgment on liability granted; no-evidence summary judgment granted against all four retained affirmative defenses (¶25); the amount of damages expressly reserved for trial (¶6).

Applying Delaware law’s three breach elements, the court held the contractual-obligation element already established by its own prior Rule 166(g) construction of the Transaction Agreement in 2026 Tex. Bus. 30 (¶¶3–4). The defendant did not dispute ceasing monthly payments in December 2024 and argued the absence of an acceleration clause; the court held that argument goes solely to the amount of damages (¶¶5–6). Of ten pleaded affirmative defenses, six were nonsuited and four retained (¶8): unconscionability failed for want of evidence of unfair advantage or absence of meaningful choice — the court noting fund closure lay entirely within the obligor’s own hands (¶¶12–15); the penalty defense failed without reaching its merits because no liquidated damages were sought (¶¶17–18); mitigation failed for want of any identified remedial action (¶22); and performance-by-payment failed because it is not a proper affirmative defense (¶23). Calendar consequence, per the case docket: the August 17 jury setting in this docket is a damages-only trial.

TagsDelaware lawbreach of contractaffirmative defensesno-evidence summary judgment1st Division

Stratton v. Hogan — conversion of corporate property is the corporation’s claim, and Sneed does not excuse pleading it derivatively.

2026 Tex. Bus. 44 (4th Div.) (mem. op.) · Sharp, J. · July 15, 2026 · No. 25-BC04B-0010 · 17 ¶¶

Rule 91a granted in part Denied as to the note claim

Rule 91a partial motion to dismiss counterclaims granted as to the conversion claim (¶12) and denied as to the $300,000 promissory-note claim (¶15); Rule 91a fees and costs declined to both sides (¶17).

Two co-owners of a physical-therapy practice separated; the plaintiff sued for judicial dissolution and the court appointed a wind-up supervisor by agreed order (¶2). The court dismissed the conversion counterclaim because the pleading alleged conversion of the corporation’s property rather than the claimant’s own, pleaded neither ownership nor right to possession, and was brought individually rather than derivatively (¶¶9–10). TBOC § 21.563 and Sneed v. Webre permit treating a derivative proceeding as a direct action for a closely held corporation, but they do not excuse the personal-cause-of-action and personal-injury requirement — and no derivative claim had been pleaded to convert (¶11). The pleading also negated harm by conceding recovery was sought only to the extent items were excluded from the Supervisor’s pending true-up (¶12). The court denied Rule 91a dismissal of the promissory-note claim because the contract elements were pleaded (¶¶14–15) — but ¶16 records that the wind-up process had already disposed of the claim, and the claimant identified no issue remaining for the jury.

TagsRule 91aderivative standingconversionTBOC § 21.563winding up4th Division

Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple of Austin v. Lam — the certificate of formation beats the bylaws, and the court never has to reach the ecclesiastical question.

2026 Tex. Bus. 45 (3d Div.) (mem. op.) · Andrews, J. · July 14, 2026 · No. 25-BC03A-0020 · 63 ¶¶

Defendants’ MSJ granted Plaintiffs’ MSJ denied

Cross-motions: Plaintiffs’ amended traditional motion denied; Defendants’ traditional motion granted as to the claims asserted by the plaintiff individuals (¶¶1, 63). Expressly not a final judgment — the UDJA attorney’s-fee claim remains pending, with submission set for August 3, 2026 (¶63).

A control dispute over a Hindu temple organized as a Texas nonprofit corporation, framed by the court as what happens when the certificate of formation says board-managed with no members but the bylaws say member-managed (¶2). The 2024 Board adopted 2025 Bylaws purporting to convert the Temple to member-managed, was advised that conversion required an amended certificate of formation, never filed one, and revoked the bylaws before a disputed November 2025 election produced a rival board (¶¶7–17). Finding a direct conflict, the court held under TBOC § 22.103(a) that the certificate controls over an inconsistent bylaw (¶¶21–26). On church autonomy it applied the neutral-principles methodology but expressly did not decide the case on that ground, stating it need not and does not resolve any ecclesiastical issues (¶¶32–36). The promissory-estoppel claim failed because the doctrine protects the reliance injury, not the expectation injury (¶¶60–61). Note the calendar: the remaining fee claim was set for submission today, August 3 — a final judgment may follow shortly.

Tagschurch autonomycertificate of formationbylaws conflictTBOC § 22.103(a)promissory estoppel3d Division

Jeremiah Counsel v. Young — an extended church-autonomy treatment, applying the legal-malpractice jurisdictional exclusion recognized in Crain v. Northern.

2026 Tex. Bus. 46 (11th Div.) · Dorfman, J. · July 15, 2026 · No. 25-BC11B-0031 · 78 ¶¶

Published opinion · cross-motions resolved

Church autonomy: Defendants’ motion granted as to the fraud claims predicated on the “biblical church” notice, and the derivative claims dismissed. Standing: associational standing sustained for direct claims; derivative standing denied under TBOC § 20.002(c). Merits: the 2023 amendment to Article V declared invalid and ineffective; the 2023 Bylaws upheld. Pre-appointment claims against former outside counsel dismissed without prejudice for want of jurisdiction; his post-appointment claims fell on church-autonomy and standing grounds (¶78).

The most consequential of the eight for entity-governance practitioners, and one of the period’s two published opinions. A church corporation’s May 2023 vote adopted bylaws eliminating member voting rights and creating a self-perpetuating Ministry Leadership Team (¶¶2, 6–16). The court held that, absent neutral principles to apply, church autonomy bars adjudication of derivative claims touching core governance decisions such as pastor hiring and use of church property (¶¶25–26), and that asking whether the “biblical church” notice was misleading would inextricably intertwine church and state (¶53). The plaintiff association satisfied all three associational-standing prongs for its direct claims (¶¶29–33) but lacked derivative standing under TBOC § 20.002(c)(2), because a bylaw is not an article (¶39). On the merits the 2023 amendment to Article V fell while the 2023 Bylaws stood (¶¶43, 66, 78). And on the question we flagged in Issue No. 11 — jurisdiction over the church’s former outside counsel — the court applied the anti-fracturing rule and held Tex. Gov’t Code § 25A.004(h)(3) deprives the Business Court of jurisdiction over legal-malpractice claims (¶¶74–77), citing Crain v. Northern (2025 Tex. Bus. 49) rather than fighting it: the two lines are reconciled, not in tension.

Tagschurch autonomyassociation standingTBOC § 20.002(c)§ 25A.004(h)(3)anti-fracturing11th Division

Synergy Thermogen v. Blackbrush Oil & Gas — a non-lawyer’s call notes are not core work product, and substantial need overcomes what protection they had.

2026 Tex. Bus. 47 (1st Div.) (mem. op.) · Whitehill, J. · July 16, 2026 · No. 25-BC01B-0011 · 38 ¶¶

Discovery · work product

Notes of a November 20, 2025 call held not core work product (¶¶26–28); prima facie noncore protection (¶29) overcome by substantial need (¶30) and undue hardship (¶¶31–35); notes discoverable (¶36) under an Attorneys’ Eyes Only designation (¶¶3, 38). The litigation-funding privilege question held not germane and not decided (¶37).

The court’s first substantive work-product ruling, now read in full. The notes — taken by a participant at counsel’s direction, of a call among a plaintiff’s former employee and three non-lawyer representatives of a counter-plaintiff (¶¶1, 11–12) — are not core work product because neither an attorney nor an attorney’s representative under Tex. R. Evid. 503(a)(4) created them, no attorney was on the call, and in camera review showed only a factual summary with no mental impressions or legal theories (¶¶26–28). The burden then shifted under Tex. R. Civ. P. 192.5(b)(2): substantial need was established by the former employee’s access to confidential and privileged information (¶30), and undue hardship by the fact that three of the four call participants had been deposed and none recalled the call’s specifics even after attempts to refresh recollection (¶¶32, 35). Two anomalies for the record: the opinion prints its own neutral citation as “2026 Tex. Bus. Ct. 47,” and the court’s PDF filename misspells the party as “blackbruch” — both logged below.

Tagswork productRule 192.5substantial needundue hardshiplitigation funding1st Division

CWK Management v. Maggi — no specific jurisdiction over a nonresident who acted only as an entity’s manager, in a $115 million underpricing suit.

2026 Tex. Bus. 48 (1st Div.) (mem. op.) · Whitehill, J. · July 21, 2026 · No. 26-BC01B-0025 · 17 ¶¶

Special appearance granted

Defendant Bill Poland’s special appearance granted; all claims against him dismissed without prejudice for want of personal jurisdiction (¶17); jurisdictional discovery denied because the court-ordered special-appearance resolution plan already afforded a discovery opportunity (¶16). The ruling reaches only Poland.

The underlying dispute concerns a 2025 sale of car-wash businesses to entities principally owned by two co-defendants for a price plaintiffs allege sits $115,000,000 below the agreed valuation (¶¶2, 5). Applying the two-prong specific-jurisdiction test and the operative-facts standard, the court held the trial’s focus would be the 2025 transaction rather than earlier operations (¶¶4, 7). Allegations that the defendant “concocted” or “orchestrated” the transaction were impermissible group pleading and conclusory (¶¶8, 14); his undisputed testimony established he dealt solely as an entity manager (¶9); and neither a principal’s nor an agent’s forum conduct may be imputed to an individual absent veil-piercing, which was not pleaded (¶¶1, 10–12). Cornerstone Healthcare distinguished (¶15). A coding note practitioners may find striking: no statute or rule is cited by name anywhere in the opinion — not Rule 120a, not the long-arm statute, not chapter 25A.

Tagsspecial appearancespecific jurisdictiongroup pleadingveil piercingfiduciary-shield1st Division

Village Crossing v. West Creek Investments — a severability clause cannot invent a new object of sale, and a future survey cannot supply the land description.

2026 Tex. Bus. 49 (11th Div.) (mem. op.) · Stagner, J., sitting by assignment · July 22, 2026 · No. 25-BC11B-0088 · 60 ¶¶

Plaintiff’s MSJ granted

Purchase and Sale Agreement declared one indivisible contract, unenforceable for indefiniteness and independently void under the statute of frauds (¶58(a)); counterclaims for breach and specific performance dismissed with prejudice (¶58(b)); alternative holding that the defendant materially breached § 5.2 and the plaintiff properly terminated (¶58(c)); the earnest-money and contractual-fee requests denied as presupposing an enforceable contract (¶58(e)). A § 37.009 fee application remains, due within 20 days (¶¶59–60).

An April 2025 agreement for approximately 11.56 acres at a blended $11.75 per square foot, with the legal description deferred to a future buyer-commissioned survey and an exhibit conceding the description “may be legally insufficient” (¶¶2–3, 10). The court held the agreement a single indivisible bargain for one defined “Land” — one price, one earnest-money deposit, one deed, one closing — and that neither the buyer’s survey nor the severability clause could restructure it into a stand-alone conveyance of the highway frontage, because a severability clause cannot invent a new object of sale or manufacture a price the parties never negotiated (¶¶6, 24, 28). Unenforceable for indefiniteness because the boundaries were never identified (¶¶31, 35); independently void under the statute of frauds because no writing furnished the means to identify the land with reasonable certainty, and a promised future survey cannot supply the description after the fact (¶¶36–48). The signature block reads “Judge of the Texas Business Court, Eighth Division, sitting by assignment in the Eleventh Division” — hold that thought for 53.

Tagsstatute of fraudsland descriptionindefinitenessseverabilityspecific performance11th Division

Fiberwave v. AT&T Enterprises — an ambiguous vesting date goes to the jury, and both sides’ fraud theories fall.

2026 Tex. Bus. 50 (1st Div.) (mem. op.) · Bouressa, J. · July 24, 2026 · No. 25-BC01A-0013 · 41 ¶¶

Omnibus ruling · five motions

AT&T’s motion against Fiberwave’s fraudulent-inducement claim granted on both traditional and no-evidence grounds; the counter-defendants’ motions against AT&T’s fraud claims granted in part on justifiable reliance, proximate causation, the economic loss rule, and all challenged no-evidence elements; the vesting-window construction held ambiguous and sent to the jury with extrinsic evidence admissible (¶10); remaining contract claims set for jury trial (¶41).

A dispute over residual compensation under a 2022 channel-partner agreement (¶¶1, 3). The court held the agreement and guidebook ambiguous as to whether the 36-month vesting window runs from the order start date or the termination date — a fact issue for the jury (¶10). Fiberwave’s fraudulent-inducement claim fell for want of proof of intent not to perform and for lack of justifiable reliance given the merger and waiver clauses (¶¶11–18); AT&T’s fraud claims fell in relevant part on justifiable reliance and proximate causation, with no false representation about a legal violation identified and no duty to disclose established (¶¶20, 25, 35–38). On the economic loss rule the court questioned whether the claimed injury was independent of the contractual undertaking, and held disgorgement unavailable because it is equitable relief protecting relationships of trust while the claimant pleaded money damages (¶¶26–29). The opinion expressly issues no opinion on rulings omitted from its ¶1 list (¶2) — a scope limit set by the court itself, which we respect in coding.

Tagscontract ambiguityfraudulent inducementeconomic loss ruledisgorgementjustifiable reliance1st Division

On the bench · four new opinions

2026 Tex. Bus. 51 through 54 — signed July 28 and 29, treated on first report.

The four opinions below were signed after Issue No. 11’s cutoff and are treated here for the first time — not as previews, but under the same PDF-verified protocol as the eight above. Three of the four issued from the Eighth Division on a single day, July 29.

Revere Tactical Opportunities Fund IV v. Lee-Wen — email and UPS next-day delivery sufficiently comply with the certified-mail foreclosure-notice requirement.

2026 Tex. Bus. 51 (1st Div.) (mem. op.) · Whitehill, J. · July 28, 2026 · No. 25-BC01B-0064, consol. w/ 26-BC01B-0019 · 21 ¶¶

Rule 166(g) motion granted Partial MSJ denied without prejudice

The Revere Parties’ Rule 166(g) Motion for Determination of Legal Matters granted; their Motion for Partial Summary Judgment Regarding a Condition Precedent denied without prejudice (¶¶19–20); expressly not a final and appealable judgment (¶21).

The pivotal issue as the court framed it: whether a lender’s notices of intent to foreclose, sent by email and UPS next-day delivery, satisfied the deeds of trust and Tex. Prop. Code § 51.002(b)(3)’s certified-mail requirement (¶1). The notices were concededly not sent by certified mail (¶4), yet the court concluded as a matter of law that the lender sufficiently complied with § 51.002(b)(3) (¶15). To a pledgor’s contention that the notice was not addressed to it, the court held that notice to an agent is notice to the principal, and that omitting the entity name from the address line was immaterial where the designated agent actually received it (¶¶16–17). The condition-precedent issues were left undecided (¶¶18–19). For lending practitioners this is the week’s most immediately operational holding — a substantial-compliance reading of a notice statute whose text says “certified mail.”

Tagsforeclosure noticeProp. Code § 51.002agencyRule 166(g)secured lending1st Division

Simpson v. Simpson — a divorce-decree constructive trust over Texas Rangers ownership units, and the exculpatory clause that decides the case.

2026 Tex. Bus. 52 (8th Div.) (mem. op.) · Bullard, J. · July 29, 2026 · No. 25-BC08A-0012 · 78 ¶¶

Defendants’ MSJ granted Plaintiff’s motions denied

Cross-motions: the plaintiff’s combined partial and no-evidence summary-judgment motion denied (¶76); the defendants’ motion for summary judgment granted (¶77); all other relief denied (¶78).

A 2021 agreed divorce decree divided the former husband’s retained interest in the entity holding Texas Rangers ownership units and — because Major League Baseball would not approve the former wife as a shareholder — created a constructive trust with him as constructive trustee and her as sole beneficiary (¶¶2–4). She sued for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and fraud by nondisclosure, alleging dilution through an undisclosed March 2025 capital call and violation of the decree’s tag-along provision by a June 2025 sale of units (¶¶5–7). The court held Section D of the decree operates as an exculpatory shield absolving the trustee of liability for dilution (¶19); that although he did breach the disclosure provision as to the capital call, that liability too is eliminated by Section D (¶35); and that selling 9 of 36 units disposed of only 25% of the Original Retained Interest, below the tag-along threshold, so the 15-day notice obligation never arose (¶26). Claimed harm from hypothetical capital-call participation was non-recoverable speculative damage (¶¶29, 43). A found breach with no remedy: the exculpatory-clause holding gives Texas fiduciaries a drafted-shield holding to reckon with.

Tagsconstructive trustexculpatory clausefiduciary dutytag-along rightsdilution8th Division

Riverside Homebuilders v. FG Aledo Development — 181 lots that could not be identified at signing; the statute-of-frauds rule, stated again.

2026 Tex. Bus. 53 (8th Div.) (mem. op.) · Stagner, J. · July 29, 2026 · No. 26-BC08B-0011 · 46 ¶¶

Defendant’s MSJ granted

Traditional summary judgment granted on the single ground that the Morningstar Contract fails to satisfy the statute of frauds; the contract declared unenforceable as a matter of law (¶¶41, 46); the remaining grounds expressly not reached (¶¶2, 8, 46); the motion to strike the Gill declaration denied as moot (¶43).

A homebuilder claimed the right to purchase 181 residential lots in a Parker County subdivision; the contract promised the lots but required a third-party builder to first divide the subdivision into two pools under unfettered discretion with no objective criteria, so no defined group existed from which the buyer could select at signing (¶¶1, 3, 7, 15). The court assumed without deciding that the contract was validly executed and resolved the case solely on the statute of frauds (¶¶6, 8), holding that a contract must adequately describe the larger tract and give the buyer a selection right “that depends on no further agreements, approvals, or discretionary choices by other persons” (¶29) — and here the buyer’s right hinged entirely on a third party’s future discretionary decision (¶¶34–35). A contract section itself acknowledged the legal description was insufficient and would be obtained later (¶45). Together with Village Crossing (49) — same judge, same doctrine, seven days apart, two different divisions — this is now the clearest emerging rule in the corpus: a land description that waits on someone else’s discretionary future act — with no unqualified selection right in the writing — is no description at all.

Tagsstatute of fraudsland description§ 26.01(b)(4)selection rightreal-estate contracts8th Division

Fischer v. Fischer — the corpus’s first receiver-immunity holding: derived judicial immunity survives vacatur of the appointing order.

2026 Tex. Bus. 54 (8th Div.) (mem. op.) · Stagner, J. · July 29, 2026 · No. 26-BC08B-0009 · 46 ¶¶

Rule 91a granted in part Denied as to allegedly receiver-created entities

The Receiver Parties’ amended Rule 91a motion granted in part and denied in part (¶43): all claims against the receiver dismissed with prejudice on derived judicial immunity (¶¶29, 44); dismissal denied as to the allegedly receiver-created entities, without prejudice to re-raising immunity on an evidentiary record (¶¶35, 39); the receiver’s Rule 91a.7 fee request granted, with a segregated fee application due in 20 days (¶¶40–41, 45).

Litigation arising from a post-divorce enforcement proceeding and the court-ordered sale of a closely held company, with allegations of undervaluation, insider bonuses, misallocated residual revenues, and trade-secret disclosure (¶¶1, 3–4, 8). The court held the receiver entitled to derived judicial immunity because the plaintiff’s own allegations tie every complained-of act to his court-ordered role — and immunity extends to alleged bad acts including fraud and dishonesty (¶¶20–23). The doctrinally significant move: the court rejected the argument that the court of appeals’ vacatur of the receivership order retroactively destroyed immunity, reasoning that the test is whether the appointing court ordinarily has jurisdiction to issue that kind of order, and expressly limiting its holding to whether a receiver can be personally liable for executing a court-ordered sale under an order later set aside (¶¶25–28). The receiver-created special-purpose entities, by contrast, could not obtain Rule 91a dismissal, because the rule confines the inquiry to the petition — which pleads nothing about how or why the entities were formed — and the facts supplied by the motion were unpleaded (¶¶31–35, 39). Read beside In re Frank Jackson, the period’s theme is unmistakable: court-adjacent actors — lawyers advising, receivers executing — are being walled off from personal liability at the pleading stage.

Tagsreceiver immunityderived judicial immunityRule 91aRule 91a.7 feesreceivership8th Division

For the record

Where the register disagrees with the opinion, the opinion wins.

Our double-coding pass over the fourteen opinions ingested this period (41–54) surfaced three defects in the court’s own register metadata. We log them here because our editorial rule — the printed opinion controls over host metadata — is only trustworthy if we show our work.

The Simpson caption. The official register and the live feed render 2026 Tex. Bus. 52 as “Simpson v. Simson.” Both hosted copies of the signed opinion — txcourts.gov and the CourtListener mirror — print SIMPSON for plaintiff and defendant, on the first page and in the body. The “Simson” spelling exists only in register and host metadata. Our corpus uses the opinion’s spelling.

The Sri Shirdi designation. The register omits the printed designation flag for 2026 Tex. Bus. 45. Two independent PDF reads — our coder and an external second coder — both read the signed PDF’s printed designation the same way. We record the designation as printed, same defect class as the Simpson caption.

The Synergy citation and filename. 2026 Tex. Bus. 47 prints its own neutral citation as “2026 Tex. Bus. Ct. 47” — the only opinion in the corpus to do so — and the court’s PDF filename misspells Blackbrush as “blackbruch.” We record the citation as printed and do not silently normalize; the party is Blackbrush.

And the reconciliation promised in Issue No. 11. Opinions 41 through 54 have now been ingested into our opinion data files and coded; corpus counts displayed across this site — the live monitor, the landing page, the archive — stand reconciled with the court’s index at 117 opinions, 52 published and 65 memorandum. The counts no longer trail the index.

Dockets & calendar

Merits August — a damages-only jury trial, a summary-judgment hearing, and a fee-application wave.

The settings below are Business Court hearing settings of record carried forward from the re:SearchTX filing-activity export in our pipeline, less the two late-July settings now past. To them this issue adds a category the opinions themselves created: fee-application deadlines running from the July rulings, each set by the court in its own order.

  • This week
  • Aug 326-BC01B-0006Urban Oil & Gas Group v. Black Stone MineralsConference (today)
  • Aug 325-BC03A-0020Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple v. Lam — UDJA fee claimSubmission day (per ¶63)
  • Aug 626-BC01B-0018Beard v. Perot, Jain & Perot Jain, L.P.Conference
  • Fee applications set by opinion
  • ~Aug 1125-BC11B-0088Village Crossing v. West Creek — § 37.009 applicationDue 20 days from July 22 (¶¶59–60)
  • ~Aug 1826-BC08B-0009Fischer v. Fischer — segregated Rule 91a.7 applicationDue 20 days from July 29 (¶45)
  • August settings of record
  • Aug 1725-BC01A-0023Cobalt Falcon v. AXS InvestmentsJury trial — damages only
  • Aug 1825-BC01B-0051Air Products and Chemicals v. WolfspeedConference
  • Aug 2025-BC11B-0087LITASCO Pan Americas v. Ballast PartnersSummary judgment hearing
  • Aug 2425-BC01A-0012STK Development v. GrandyJury trial
  • September (selected)
  • Sep 14–1825-BC08B-0020Tachyon Technologies v. Kakarla / SignitivesJury trial
  • Sep 2125-BC01A-0055Stonebriar Commercial Finance v. WardJury trial
  • Sep 29–3026-BC11A-0004Energy Founders Fund v. Daskevich / Gage WesternBench trial

Hearing settings are drawn from re:SearchTX’s filing-activity export and remain carried forward from the Issue No. 10 export; the saved-search rebuild described in Issue No. 11 is still pending, so settings may have been vacated or reset without generating an alert we ingest. Fee-application dates marked “~” are computed from the 20-day periods the opinions themselves set and are our calculation, not docket entries of record. Where the export omits hearing times, those settings appear on the live monitor as they are published.

Alert posture, briefly. The re:SearchTX alert channel continued to deliver through August 2, and continued to deliver almost entirely matter outside the Business Court — the most recent alerts return Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Court of Appeals dockets, including criminal matters. Our Business-Court-only filter is correctly rejecting that noise, the saved searches still await the re-scoping described in Issue No. 11, and new-petition and hearings coverage accordingly remains source-limited. The opinions coverage in this issue comes from the court’s own index and PDFs and is unaffected. We make no filing-volume claim.

Carried forward

The threads we are still pulling.

Whether Jackson goes up. No petition in In re Frank Jackson has appeared on the Supreme Court of Texas docket as of this issue’s cutoff. The real party in interest told the Fifteenth Court on July 21 that he intended to seek relief there, and Justice Farris’s dissent invites clarification of the Rule 91a standard. We will report a petition when one appears on the court’s own docket, and not before.

The Harkema and Borchers trials. The July 29 bench-trial setting in Harkema v. Clark (No. 25-BC08B-0006) has now passed; as before, no verified record of trial events has surfaced, the matter remains uncorroborated in any government record, and we continue to label it source-pending. The Borchers/Drusch jury trial reported as commencing July 13 has likewise produced no verified verdict or judgment; the two Fifteenth Court appeals in that dispute remain pending without opinion.

SWAPA’s repleading. Still nothing of record since the June 19 deadline set in 2026 Tex. Bus. 37, and no further opinion in the matter on the official index.

Looking ahead

What we are tracking.

2026 Tex. Bus. 55. Three opinions in one day from a single division suggests chambers clearing summer inventory; we expect the index to keep moving in August, and — standing policy after Issue No. 10 — our weekly index read is now cross-checked against an independent mirror before any “quiet week” claim is printed.

A final judgment in Sri Shirdi. The UDJA fee claim in 45 was set for submission today, August 3. A fee ruling would convert the interlocutory cross-motions ruling into an appealable final judgment — and put the court’s first church-autonomy holding on a path to the Fifteenth Court.

The fee-application wave. Village Crossing’s § 37.009 application (~Aug 11) and Fischer’s segregated Rule 91a.7 application (~Aug 18) will show how the court disciplines fee proof — Fischer in particular, where the court granted fees to the receiver but demanded segregation.

The statute-of-frauds line. Whether 49 and 53’s unqualified-selection-right rule draws a third application — and whether any land-contract drafter in the court’s jurisdiction still defers the legal description to a future survey after reading them.

Rebuilding the alert searches. Unchanged from Issue No. 11: the three re:SearchTX saved searches need re-scoping to the Business Court divisions and the Fifteenth Court. Until then, new-petition and hearings coverage is source-limited and labelled as such.

How we work

Editorial standards.

Our disciplines are non-negotiable: primary sources, human review, declared conflicts, and a refusal to take paid placement on coverage.

01 / Sources

Court text, dockets, filings of record.

Opinions are pulled from txcourts.gov/businesscourt; dockets from re:SearchTX; statutes from capitol.texas.gov. Practitioner blogs may appear in scholarship cites but are never load-bearing.

02 / Citations

Citation discipline on every entry.

Per-opinion entries follow Bluebook 21st short-form conventions; sequential per-year citations are preserved (e.g., 2026 Tex. Bus. 29 follows 28).

03 / Review

Every opinion summary read by a human editor.

AI assists with first-pass extraction. Every published characterization is read against the underlying opinion PDF; errors are corrected at the source with a dated note.

04 / Independence

No party may purchase coverage. Conflicts declared in-issue.

SMU CGI is funded institutionally. The Hilltop Docket accepts no paid placement and declares conflicts in the closing section of each issue. Editorial policy.