In legal parlance, it was a “remand”, but the result in Energy Transfer, LP et al v. Culberson Midstream LLC et al was the same. According to Judge Bill Whitehill of the Business Court of Texas, First Division, the Texas business court does not have authority over cases filed before September 1, 2024. This one will return to the 193rd District Court in Dallas.  Why? Because the plain language of HB 19 from the 2023 Regular Session, the business court enabling statute, says so.

How the parties got here

Energy Transfer filed suit in April 2022.  The district court’s docket showed 57 pages of activity from April 2022 to August 31, 2024. Energy Transfer removed the case on September 30, 2024. The defendants moved to remand saying that the case is not removable under Government Code §25A.006 because House Bill 19 is restricted to suits commenced on or after September 1, 2024.

The plaintiff made several arguments, all of which were rejected by the court. Lawyers interested in knowing what arguments not to rely on when considering removal of a case to the business court should study this opinion. Those arguments are unnecessarily esoteric to dwell on here.

How to read a Texas statute

The court relied on these rules of statutory construction:

  • Construction of a statute is a legal question.
  • If the statute is not ambiguous the court adopts an interpretation supported by its plain language unless such an interpretation would lead to absurd results.
  • It is presumed that the Legislature included each word in a statute for a purpose and words not included were purposefully omitted.

§25A.006 permits removal of cases to the business court if the case meets jurisdictional requirements but does not address whether cases on file before September 1, 2024, are removable.

The plain language of the statute governs

The wording of the statute was the linchpin of the ruling. §8 of HB 19 could have said the court may begin accepting cases beginning on September 21, 2024, but it does not say that. §8 says, “The changes in law made by this Act apply to civil actions commenced on or after September 1, 2024. The court concluded that it must construe §8 as limiting §25A.006’s removal provisions to cases filed on or after that date.  

The good news

  1. The court was efficient. The matter was removed on September 30, 2024, and remanded by an order on October 30. Prompt justice, one of the advertised advantages of the business courts, was delivered.
  • The parties and future litigants benefited from a written opinion explaining the court’s reasoning. You don’t see that in a typical trial court order due to the workload of those courts.
  • In light of the many as-yet unanswered questions about how this new statute will be interpreted, this case resolved a question about which cases are removable and which aren’t.

For your musical enjoyment, a few Bob Dylan covers:

Lucinda Williams  –  Not Dark Yet

Molly Tuttle – You Ain’t Going Nowhere

Toni Lindgren – Buckets of Rain

New Basement Tapes – When I Get My Hands on You