Wainwright is a Right-Wing Judicial Activist

Dale Wainwright is a one-judge case study into what is wrong with the Texas judicial system.

Here are just a couple of Wainwright’s most shamefully bad judicial decisions.

Igal v. Brightstar Information Technology Group

This was a 5 to 4 decision, which means that if Texans had elected just one less anti-worker judge, the outcome would have been different.

Wainwright held that an employer could use the Texas Payday Law’s 180-day deadline to file a wage claim to stop a worker from pursuing a claim for unpaid salary in court, which has a two-year deadline.

Here is what the other four judges on the court had to say about Wainwright’s bad opinion:

The Texas Legislature passed the Payday Law to give unpaid workers a quick alternative to lengthy civil litigation. But today the Court holds they lose everything if they pursue that alternative a little too late, even though years remain to file suit in court. This is not about biting apples twice; this is about a man’s wages, a claim that like many others can be filed a second time if the first disposition was not on the merits. By holding Payday claims dismissed for tardiness cannot be refiled in court, the Court converts a law giving extra options to workers into a trap where they may forfeit all their rights. Because I agree with the state agency entrusted with these claims that this could not possibly be what the Legislature intended, I respectfully dissent…. I disagree that an order dismissing a Payday claim as untimely precludes a subsequent suit. Res judicata attaches only to a judgment on the merits. There are at least five reasons why the Texas Workforce Commission’s order here is not one.

First, the Commission itself says so. In its amicus brief supporting Igal’s right to file suit in court, the Commission says “res judicata does not apply ... because TWC’s order was not a judgment on the merits but a procedural dismissal for untimeliness.” How can the Court hold the Commission intended a merits dismissal when the Commission itself stipulates that it did not? …

Second, the order itself shows that Igal’s contract rights were considered only for the purpose of deciding whether his claim was untimely....

Third, to presume the Commission made a ruling on the merits, we must presume it made a clear error. ... We should not presume the Commission committed an error by reaching the merits when it could not.

Fourth, Brightstar insisted throughout the Commission proceedings that Igal’s claim was untimely. ... Having obtained success on that ground, Brightstar should not be allowed to change its position when the claim was refiled in court.

Fifth, … The Legislature has chosen to give Texans asserting Payday claims two different ways to proceed. That being the case, this Court has no business saying that if they try one too late, then they get none at all. The Commission properly dismissed Igal’s Payday claim as late, but that does not preclude his common law claim which was filed on time. Because the Court holds otherwise, I respectfully dissent.

F.F.P. Operating Partners, L.P. v. Dueñez

Wainwright handed down his opinion on rehearing a decade after a convenience store sold beer to an obviously drunk pick-up truck driver. Wainwright decided that he could second guess the Texas Legislature and conclude that convenience store should not be responsible for its own reckless actions.

Here is what another judge on the court had to say about Wainwright's bad opinion:

Between the time the Court issued its original decision in this case and the date rehearing was granted, more than seven months passed and three members of the former majority left the Court. The motion for rehearing raises no new issues; every point was thoroughly considered by the Court in its prior decision. While the motion for rehearing was pending, the Legislature convened without taking any action to alter this Court's original interpretation. Nevertheless, the Court today withdraws the prior opinion, reaches the opposite result, and accomplishes judicially what the Legislature itself declined to do.... In sum, the disagreement in this case is, and has always been, over what the Legislature meant in the Dram Shop Act when it referred to "the liability of providers under this chapter for the actions of their customers ... who are or become intoxicated." ... Over two years ago, the Court considered this language significant and straightforward, and afforded the Legislature deference in choosing it.... Today the Court usurps the legislative function and dilutes the deterrent protections the Dram Shop Act was designed to afford.

Still another judge on the court had this further criticism of Wainwright's bad opinion:

If a bar sells liquor to a person so "obviously intoxicated" that he is "a clear danger to himself and others," to what extent does the sale "proximately cause" the harm that person inflicts when he gets behind the wheel? The Legislature has answered that it does not matter. If the bar sells to a drunk, it must pay damages when the drunk’s intoxication (not the provider’s sale) causes the sort of trauma that forms the heart of this case. The Legislature plainly believes that deterring such a sale is sound public policy.... Under the Court’s construction, however, the bar may avoid liability precisely because its patron was so "obviously intoxicated" and such a "clear danger" that the sale could not have proximately caused carnage on a Texas road. The dram shop thus has a perverse incentive to establish at trial that its customer was in such a drunken state that selling him "one for the road" could not have contributed to the harm his intoxication later caused.... The Legislature meant to make providers liable whether or not their conduct played a causative role in subsequent harm. The Court’s holding eviscerates that policy choice and requires that the Dueñezes prove not only that Ruiz consumed F.F.P.’s alcohol, but also that his consumption so aggravated the danger he posed pre-sale that the sale (and not just his prior intoxicated condition) "caused" the ultimate harm. But the statute does not require that the patron consume the alcohol, that the sale aggravate the patron’s prior intoxication, or that the provider play any role in causing or contributing to the accident. Ironically, under the Court’s interpretation, the provider now has an incentive to establish that its patron was so drunk at the time of sale that its conduct could not, as a matter of law, have contributed to the harm the patron ultimately caused. As a result, the very instrument that the Legislature employed to deter drunk driving (liability for serving a drunk) becomes a means to escape responsibility entirely.