Law Commons^™

The Curious Origin Of Texas Pleading, Justice Jason Boatright

SMU Law Review

For 150 years, judges and legal scholars said that the Texas pleading system came from Spain. They explained that Mexico used a simple Spanish pleading system that English-speaking immigrants to Mexican Texas liked more than the complicated procedure they had known in the United States. After separating from Mexico, the story goes, Texas retained the Spanish system.

But that story is probably wrong. The Republic of Texas enacted its first pleading law in 1836. It does not look like Spanish pleading laws; it looks like an 1824 law written by Stephen F. Austin for his colony’s alcalde courts. Austin’s law …

Memorial Essay In Honor Of Professor Emeritus Joseph Webb Mcknight: Yet Another Historical Joinder Between Texas And Mexico: The Ongoing Nafta Saga, Joseph J. Norton

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Decline Of Anglo-American Civil Jury Trial Practice, William V. Dorsaneo Iii

SMU Law Review

This article provides a brief historical explanation of the role that juries have played in Anglo-American civil trial practice. In doing so, the article documents the rise and fall of jury trial practice as a mechanism for resolving civil disputes in both England and America. The article explains how the modern rules of procedure and procedural statutes promote resolving disputes through pretrial litigation procedures at the expense of resolving disputes by jury trial.

The article begins with a description of the use of juries in England at the end of the twelfth century and continues until the near disappearance of …

What’S In A Name?: Proving Actual Damages For Reputational Harm In Texas Defamation Cases Will Only Get Harder, Austin Brakebill

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unintended Consequences: The Link Between Judge Friendly’S Texas Gulf Sulphur Concurrence And Recent Supreme Court Decisions Misconstruing Rule 10b-5, Margaret V. Sachs

SMU Law Review

In his Texas Gulf Sulphur concurrence, Judge Henry J. Friendly coun- seled the federal district courts concerning the numerous pending satellite class actions that had been filed under Section 10(b) of the Securities Ex- change Act and Rule 10b-5. In the course of so doing, he argued forcefully that private Rule 10b-5 litigation should be curtailed. Finding his argument convincing, the Supreme Court issued four major decisions restricting the Rule between 1975 and 1994, while nonetheless expanding it in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. Congress responded by blessing both aspects of the Court’s jurisprudence – imposing its own set of …