Glossary & how to cite

04.5 · Reader's reference

Glossary — every term, in Plain English and Academic detail

Every division, procedural posture, ruling type, and doctrinal anchor that appears in the Sankey above is defined here. Each card opens to a two-tab popup: a Plain-English tab with examples and analogies, and an Academic-detail tab with the black-letter rule, the controlling Texas Business Court opinion, and Bluebook 21st citations to primary sources. Two-tab pattern: SMU CGI, ExxonMobil Stress Tests, exxon-publication.pages.dev/stress_tests.

Divisions

The geographic units of the Texas Business Court. The 88th Texas Legislature created eleven divisions in HB 19; five — the 1st, 3d, 4th, 8th, and 11th — received funding and opened for filings on September 1, 2024. Tex. Gov't Code Ann. §§ 25A.002, 25A.003 (West 2025); HB 19, 88th Leg., R.S. (Tex. 2023). Across these five divisions the corpus contains 123 opinions, October 2024 through July 2026.

Procedural postures

The specific motion or vehicle that put each opinion in front of the Court. These are the doctrinal levers — they determine the burden, the standard of review, and what the Court is actually deciding.

Rulings

"Granted" and "denied" carry posture-dependent operative consequences. A granted plea to the jurisdiction dismisses the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction as filed; a granted motion to remand sends the action to the state district court from which it was removed. Posture and ruling must be read together. Of 19 granted remand motions in the corpus, 2 rest on § 25A.004(d) monetary-floor reasoning (Clean-Co under the (d)(1) qualified-transaction floor; OWL Assetco 1 under the (d) amount-in-controversy chapeau); the remainder rest on commencement-date bars, counterparty status, or other statutory predicates.

04.6 · Doctrines at a glance

The doctrines shaping substantive holdings in the first 22 months

A handful of doctrinal questions account for the largest share of substantive holdings in the corpus. Each is anchored in a specific statutory text, a controlling Texas Business Court opinion, and a practitioner-facing takeaway. Click any doctrine for plain-English meaning, the black-letter rule, the controlling TBC opinion, and the Bluebook authority.