Complete archive
Every issue of the SMU Corporate Governance Initiative’s weekly briefing on the Texas Business Court, newest first. Each edition links to the underlying court orders on the public record.
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Issues published
103
Opinions in corpus
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Published / memorandum
2026 Tex. Bus. 40
Latest citation
Archive · What this is
The archive is the append-only record of every edition of The Hilltop Docket — published weekly since May 20, 2026.
Issues are listed newest first. Titles and dates are reproduced from each published edition. Opinion citations follow the Texas Business Court’s sequential per-year scheme (e.g., 2026 Tex. Bus. 40). The full opinion corpus and live monitor are at smucgi.org/research/texas-business-court/opinions/.
All issues · Newest first
Select any issue to read the full edition, including opinion treatments, new-petition summaries, and the hearing calendar for that week.
No new opinion posted to the court’s official index since Local Marketing v. Bennett (2026 Tex. Bus. 40); the per-year corpus remains contiguous through that citation, with nothing added this period. A short continuity edition: the docket posture from the re:SearchTX stream, an ExxonMobil redomestication status check, and the threads carried forward — the SWAPA repleading and anti-SLAPP fee practice.
One new memorandum opinion, Local Marketing v. Bennett (2026 Tex. Bus. 40) — the digest’s first Texas Citizens Participation Act treatment — granting a TCPA motion to dismiss defamation and tortious-interference counterclaims for want of damages evidence and awarding mandatory attorney’s fees.
Three new memorandum opinions (2026 Tex. Bus. 37–39), each denying the moving party: Boeing’s motion for summary judgment in the 737 MAX / SWAPA suit, cross-motions on an employment-contract relocation term, and a four-ground remand denial reaffirming whole-action jurisdiction in South Shore ER v. Bashiri.
Four opinions confirmed on the official index (2026 Tex. Bus. 33–36), including a jurisdictional remand in Brown v. Exxon Mobil and a drag-along Affiliate ruling in Energy Founders Fund v. Daskevich.
The Texas Business Court issues three new opinions (2026 Tex. Bus. 33, 34, 35), including Brown v. Exxon Mobil; ExxonMobil shareholders approve the New Jersey-to-Texas redomestication.
A faculty exchange between SMU scholars Christina M. Sautter and Shane Goodwin on ExxonMobil and the “Leopard Paradigm,” leading into the May 27, 2026 ExxonMobil shareholder vote on Texas redomiciliation.
A quiet opinions week at the Texas Business Court; four new dockets filed Friday; a faculty exchange and the ExxonMobil shareholder vote on Wednesday.
The first edition of The Hilltop Docket: intelligence on the Texas Business Court — opinions, dockets, hearings, and doctrine — from the SMU Corporate Governance Initiative, opening with Plains Pipeline v. Arrowhead Gulf Coast Holdings (2026 Tex. Bus. 29).
Looking for the underlying opinions rather than the weekly editions? The complete corpus is searchable at the opinions index, with a machine-readable feed at /research/texas-business-court/opinions/feed/opinions.xml. Editorial standards and the masthead are documented on the About page.
How we work
Every edition in this archive was published under the same four disciplines: primary sources, human review, declared conflicts, and no paid placement on coverage.
01 / Primary sources
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 / Bluebook 21st
Per-opinion entries follow Bluebook 21st short-form conventions; sequential per-year citations are preserved (e.g., 2026 Tex. Bus. 29 follows 28).
03 / Human review
AI assists with first-pass extraction. Every published characterization is read against the underlying opinion PDF; mischaracterizations are corrected at the source with a dated note.
04 / Independence & conflicts
SMU CGI is funded institutionally. The Hilltop Docket accepts no paid placement and declares conflicts in the closing section of each issue. Editorial policy.
