01 · Headline finding
Of the 123 coded Texas Business Court opinions in the corpus (123 tracked; 0 awaiting doctrinal coding), 72 (59%) resolved on a threshold ground — jurisdictional, procedural, or early-procedurali — without adjudicating an underlying claim on the merits.
The corpus is, 21 months in, weighted toward jurisdictional doctrine: 72 of 123 coded opinions (59%) resolved on a threshold ground. The split here separates opinions for which a discrete claim adjudication is coded (merits-reaching) from those resolving only on procedural or jurisdictional grounds without reaching the underlying claim (threshold). A subset of the threshold-side opinions carry merits-shaped early-procedural postures (7 Rule 166(g) early-legal-issue rulingsi; 4 Rule 91a dismissalsi); they are coded threshold because the disposition did not adjudicate a claim on its merits. Bucketing convention: threshold = jurisdiction-only postures (remand, special appearance, plea to jurisdiction, removability, transfer) plus Rule 91a, Rule 166(g), and motions to dismiss; merits = every other posture (n=51). Hover any segment for the per-posture breakdown; click to filter the matrix below. The early corpus is a jurisdictional map, not a mature merits corpus.
Threshold rulings — 72 opinions
Merits-reaching — 51 opinions
Hover a segment for the breakdown · click to filter the matrix
Source note
The Texas Judicial Branch provides short staff descriptions for public convenience. Those descriptions are not part of the opinions, are not official statements of the court, and are not legal authority. Texas Judicial Branch, Business Court Opinions. The Codex uses staff descriptions only for intake; all final coding traces to PDF paragraph pin cites in the opinions themselves. The threshold/merits split reflects a coded ruling_bucket (threshold / merits / mixed) validated against the PDF, not a mechanical inference from an empty claims field.
Corpus snapshot & data coverage
Corpus snapshot: 2024 Tex. Bus. 1 through 2026 Tex. Bus. 60, last checked August 21, 2026.
No corpus-level inference is drawn from fields with low coverage. Petition-level pleaded-claim coverage requires docket / pleading backfill and is not complete unless an opinion row is marked “pleading verified.” Where a claim count appears, it distinguishes claims discussed or adjudicated in the opinion from pleaded causes of action in the underlying petition; a single opinion may carry multiple values on the former axis.
Methodology — full taxonomy and coding rules
Corpus universe. Every opinion published in the Texas Judicial Branch Business Court Opinions repository from October 1, 2024 through the last-corpus-check date above. Every written opinion the court posts to its register is included.
Threshold vs. merits bucketing. An opinion is coded threshold when the disposition resolves on jurisdiction-only postures (remand, special appearance, plea to the jurisdiction, removability, transfer) or on Rule 91a / Rule 166(g) / motion to dismiss. Every other posture is coded merits. The split is computed live in the browser from the posture field; see bucketFor() in dashboard.js for the exact keyword list.
Ruling categories. Seven buckets are recognized: granted, denied, mixed, remanded, dismissed (jurisdictional), construction (Rule 166(g)), other. The category is derived from the ruling text by rulingCategory() in dashboard.js; the Sankey axis is the union of the base taxonomy and every category observed in the corpus, so no ruling value can drop out of the chart. The full ruling text is preserved verbatim and displayed in the matrix.
Primary-source linkage. Every opinion in the matrix carries a pdf_url that resolves directly to txcourts.gov. No CourtListener, Westlaw, Lexis, or other aggregator URL appears in the dataset (primary-sources rule).
Cell-level filtering. Every visualization element (iceberg segment, Sankey stream, heatmap cell, judge card, division-month cell, ribbon dot) is a click target. Clicking applies a filter to the matrix below and scrolls into view. Filter chips appear above the matrix and clear individually or via the Reset button.
Coverage caveats. The Court does not publish an order docket with file-date metadata; commencement-date coding for HB 19 § 8 questions traces to the opinion text plus the underlying state-court petition where verified. Petition-level pleaded-claim coding (which differs from the opinion's claim-adjudication coding) is incomplete and only displayed where flagged pleading verified.