The Texas Supreme Court issued an order this morning requiring the attorneys who represent the lottery players and the attorneys who represent GTECH (now known as IGT) to appear before the Court on December 3, 2019 to present oral arguments. The oral arguments will be videotaped and will be available for the public to watch on the internet after the arguments take place.
At the time of the arguments, each side will be given 20 minutes to state their case and to answer questions from the Justices. Following those arguments, the Justices will vote on whether to uphold the Austin Court of Appeals’ opinion and allow the lottery players to proceed forward with their lawsuit or whether to decide that GTECH is immune from suit for fraud because it is a government contractor. Following their vote, the Justices will assign one Justice to write the opinion and to circulate that proposed opinion to the other Justices.
Does this order mean that the Court is leaning towards ruling that GTECH is above the law? No. It simply means that the Court has questions for both side’s attorneys and wants to consider their answers and their legal arguments before writing an opinion that will guide lawyers and judges in future cases.
The court strives to issue opinions for every case that it hears before the end of that term which will be June 30, 2020. That means the Court is likely to issue its opinion anytime between the December oral arguments and June 30, 2020.