Texas Supreme Court abuse of review
When I first started practicing law in 1973 the black-letter law on Supreme Court jurisdiction in considering fact issues as opposed to legal issues was a 1960 article written by Justice Robert Calvert. He probably did not realize how prophetical he was being:
"It is theoretically possible, and sometimes not far from actual fact, that five members of the Supreme Court will conclude that the evidence supporting a finding of a vital fact has no probative force, and ...in effect, that the trial judge, who overruled an instructed verdict, the twelve jurors who signed the verdict, the three justices of the court of civil appeals and four dissenting justices of the Supreme Court are not "men of reasonable minds'". No Evidence & Insufficient Evidence Points of Error, 38 Tex.L.Rev. 361 (1960).
Today, the conservative Supreme Court in Austin practices exactly what their conservative backers used to condemn--activist judicial review. Not only does it change the law to meet the desired outcome, it second guesses the factual determinations by the juries and lower courts. Because of this plaintiffs attorneys many times consider it to be tantamount to malpractice to file a case in Texas if it can legitimately be filed in ANY other state. The chances of surviving a Texas Supreme Court appeal with a large jury verdict is at best minimal.
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