Weekly Digest
July 25 – July 31, 2026
6 opinions this week
Shaikh v. Rodriguez
COA01
In Shaikh v. Rodriguez, a diabetic patient sued her rheumatologist, alleging negligent prednisone treatment because the doctor failed to ensure glucose monitoring, warn about steroid-related risks, and coordinate diabetic care, which allegedly contributed to serious vision complications. On interlocutory appeal from the denial of dismissal under Chapter 74, the defendant argued the plaintiff’s experts were unqualified because they were not rheumatologists. The First Court of Appeals rejected that specialty-matching argument and held the qualification inquiry is issue-specific: whether the expert has knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education regarding the precise medical questions at issue. Because the ophthalmologist and the internal-medicine/critical-care physician tied their experience to prednisone use in diabetic patients, glucose monitoring, risk disclosure, and coordinated care, the trial court acted within its discretion in finding the reports sufficient and denying dismissal.
Litigation Takeaway
“When defending or attacking an expert, focus on the exact issue in dispute—not job titles or subspecialty labels. An expert need not share the opposing party’s specialty if the expert can show real, issue-specific experience with the standard of care, risk, monitoring duty, or methodology actually at issue.”
In the Matter of A.M., a Juvenile
COA01
In In the Matter of A.M., the First Court of Appeals affirmed a juvenile court’s order waiving juvenile jurisdiction and transferring A.M. to criminal district court under Texas Family Code section 54.02. The State presented surveillance footage, witness testimony, and officer identification tying A.M. to three aggravated assaults and to a shooting in which Faridah Davis was killed. A.M. argued that his low IQ, cognitive limitations, mental-health history, and prior fitness concerns weighed against transfer, but the court held that the juvenile court could reasonably give greater weight to the seriousness and repeated nature of the violent offenses, the recency of the conduct after release from detention, and community-safety concerns. The court also held probable cause existed on the murder allegation even though the State could not yet prove which shooter fired the fatal bullet, because evidence showed A.M. fired multiple rounds into the occupied vehicle and acted in concert with another shooter. The transfer order was therefore supported by sufficient evidence and was not an abuse of discretion.
Litigation Takeaway
“When a record shows serious, repeated violence supported by objective evidence like video, witnesses, and law-enforcement testimony, Texas courts may prioritize safety over mitigating evidence of mental-health or cognitive impairment. For family-law litigators, the lesson is to connect impairment evidence to actual risk, parenting capacity, and workable safeguards—or expect the court to focus on dangerous conduct and public protection.”
In the Matter of A.M., a Juvenile
COA01
In In the Matter of A.M., the First Court of Appeals affirmed a juvenile court’s decision to waive juvenile jurisdiction and transfer A.M. to criminal court under Texas Family Code section 54.02. The State alleged three aggravated assaults and one murder, and presented surveillance footage, officer testimony, and psychological and probation evidence showing A.M.’s involvement in multiple violent shootings, including a fatal shooting into an occupied vehicle. The court held the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support probable cause and the finding that the welfare of the community required criminal proceedings, despite evidence of A.M.’s intellectual and mental-health limitations. It also held probable cause existed for felony murder under the law of parties even though the fatal bullet was not tied to A.M. specifically, and affirmed the denial of a fitness-to-proceed hearing.
Litigation Takeaway
“Courts do not treat diagnoses, low IQ, or mental-health history as automatic barriers to transfer or other protective rulings; they focus on functional evidence, prior interventions, public safety, and whether existing services can realistically prevent further harm. For family-law litigators, the lesson is to build a concrete record linking behavior, supervision history, treatment response, and objective evidence to the governing best-interest or safety standard.”
In re U. L.
COA14
In re U. L. involved a party who sought emergency mandamus relief after a regional presiding judge denied her motion to recuse in a pending Harris County case. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals held that Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 18a(j) controls and makes a denial of recusal reviewable only for abuse of discretion on appeal from a final judgment, which forecloses interlocutory mandamus review of the denial itself. The court also analyzed its mandamus jurisdiction under Texas Government Code section 22.221 and concluded it lacked authority to order the regional presiding judge to vacate the recusal denial or conduct further proceedings absent a specific statutory grant. The court therefore denied the mandamus petitions.
Litigation Takeaway
“If a recusal motion is denied in a family-law case, do not count on emergency mandamus to fix it. Build a complete Rule 18a record, preserve objections and harm, and prepare to challenge the denial only after final judgment.”
In the Matter of A.M.
COA01
The First Court of Appeals affirmed a juvenile court’s order waiving jurisdiction and transferring A.M. to criminal district court under Texas Family Code section 54.02(a). The State alleged three aggravated assaults with a deadly weapon and one murder arising from multiple shootings, including one incident in which A.M. allegedly fired nine rounds into an occupied vehicle and a passenger was killed. On appeal, A.M. argued the evidence was insufficient on probable cause and the welfare-of-the-community finding, and emphasized his extremely low intellectual functioning and mental-health history. The court applied the section 54.02(a) transfer requirements and the nonexclusive section 54.02(f) factors, held the violent, repeated offenses against persons and the failure of prior interventions supported transfer, and concluded the juvenile court was entitled to weigh public-safety concerns more heavily than the evidence favoring treatment in juvenile court. The court also held probable cause existed on the murder allegation even though the investigator could not identify which shooter fired the fatal bullet, and it affirmed the denial of a fitness-to-proceed evidentiary hearing.
Litigation Takeaway
“When a case involves youth violence, courts tend to focus on structured statutory factors and will defer heavily to the trial judge’s weighing of conflicting evidence. In family-law litigation, repeated violent conduct, firearm use, surveillance evidence, and failed prior interventions can strongly support emergency relief, possession restrictions, and conservatorship limits; mental-health or cognitive-deficit evidence is most persuasive when tied to a concrete treatment, supervision, and safety plan.”
Willie Silliman v. The State of Texas
COA07
In Silliman v. State, the Amarillo Court of Appeals held that a trial court could exclude late-produced April 2024 police and recording materials as a discovery sanction under article 39.14 yet still admit testimony about that same prior family-violence incident under article 38.371. The complainant recanted at trial, and the court treated the discovery-sanction issue and the admissibility of relationship evidence as separate questions, concluding that independently admissible testimony was not automatically tainted by exclusion of related exhibits. The court also held that using the excluded materials outside the jury’s presence to refresh recollection did not make the testimony inadmissible because the excluded items themselves were never shown to the jury, and that a timely disclosed May body-camera video referencing the April incident was admissible because its probative value in evaluating recantation and relationship context was not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice under Rule 403.
Litigation Takeaway
“Excluding a late-produced exhibit does not automatically exclude live testimony about the underlying conduct. In family-law cases involving violence, recantation, or coercive control, lawyers should separate excluded documents from admissible personal-knowledge testimony and focus objections or responses on relevance, Rule 403, and whether the other side is using testimony as a backdoor way to publish excluded material.”