Strictly Business

Well, it’s been a quiet few months here at Strictly Business–because it’s been a quiet few months at the Business Court (at least, in terms of opinions). So far, the Court has issued 16 opinions statewide, and most of them have essentially just been the same opinion, saying that TBC doesn’t have jurisdiction over cases filed before the TBC was created. You can check out our previous post, which covers the rationale behind that decision, but the short version is that the enacting statute stated that the changes in law made by Chapter 25A were effective from September 1, 2024.

A whole lot of these went up on appeal, and last week the 15th COA gave us its answer in two sister opinions, ETC Field Services, LLC I and ETC Field Services, LLC II.

ETC I dealt with whether an order remanding a case from the Business Court was subject to direct appeal. The Court of Appeals gave us a very straightforward answer. No. The Court reasoned that no statute authorizes an interlocutory appeal, and a remand order is not a final judgment.

ETC II posed the same question, but in the mandamus context. Here, the Court held that the lower court got the law right and there was no abuse of discretion. No abuse of discretion, no mandamus relief.

The ETC II opinion went on, however, to address the adequate remedy by appeal issue, giving guidance to future remandees on how to proceed. The Court held that it could review remand orders on mandamus, noting that the purpose of the Business Court system and the Fifteenth COA is to create a “consistent, uniform, and predictable” business jurisprudence, and to do that it needed to be able to give direction on the law.

Interestingly, it qualified its ruling on the availability of mandamus relief:

[W]e hold that in these early days of business court litigation, remand and removal is subject to review by mandamus according to the same principles and rules as in any other pretrial orders.

A suggestion that the Court will reconsider its ruling down the line? An explanation of rationale? Time will tell.