Columns Lead Articles Features Message from the President It’s the Law—You Own the Water Texas Supreme Court and By Dale Wainwright under Your Land: The Evolution of Court of Criminal Appeals Pass This fall the Society has already held the Texas Groundwater Law Emergency Relief Orders in John Hemphill Dinner, By Edmond R. McCarthy, Jr. Hurricane Harvey’s Wake a Portrait Dedication The title for this article By Dylan O. Drummond Ceremony, and a Texas is taken from a billboard Texas’s two highest Appellate Hall of Fame displaying similar text Hon. Dale courts—for the Induction Ceremony. Wainwright along State Highway 79 first time—issued a Read more... in Franklin, Robertson slew of emergency County, Texas. Texas drought in administrative orders to Read more... the 1950s assist litigants as well as Executive Director’s Page Flooding in both the bench and bar. Houston By Sharon Sandle Read more... The history of the Texas Groundwater Law from impact of storms like Its Origins in Antiquity to Hurricane Harvey can 22nd Annual John Hemphill Dinner: be found in the way the Its Adoption in Modernity Texas courts addressed By Dylan O. Drummond Chief Judge Diane P. Wood the aftermath. Before “ownership in Sharon Sandle Was the Featured Speaker Read more... place” and the “rule By Marilyn P. Duncan of capture” were Photos by Mark Matson recognized in Texas, the Almost 400 attendees debate between the two Fellows Column filled the Grand concepts had already From the By David J. Beck Roman Emperor Ballroom of the Four raged for some 2,000 The latest book in the Justinian’s Seasons Hotel in Austin years. Read more... “Digest” Taming Texas series, to enjoy dinner and part of our Judicial the evening’s program. Attendees toast memorialized Civics and Court History Read more... Court members Project, is an exciting A Brief History of the Short History addition. Read more... David J. Beck of the State of the Judiciary in Texas By Osler McCarthy Retired Supreme Court Justice Scott The ritual of the Chief Brister’s Portrait is Unveiled Executive Editor’s Page Justice’s biennial State By Dylan O. Drummond By David A. Furlow of the Judiciary address Photos by Mark Matson Groundwater and to the Legislature seems The portrait, presented surface water are so a mainstay in this state, to the Texas Supreme important that our but the tradition is only Chief Justice Joe R. Greenhill Court in a ceremony Editorial Board chose thirty-eight years old. delivered the first in its courtroom, was to dedicate this issue to Read more... address the history of water law beautifully painted by in Texas. Read more... David A. Furlow Hill Country artist Patsy Ledbetter. Read more... Portrait detail Appellate Legends Chief Justice Sharing Judicial Civics Lessons with News & Announcements Jack Pope, Professor Don Hunt, and Fellow Legal History Professionals Society Members Nominated to the Trailblazer Helen Cassidy Join the By David A. Furlow The Society shared its Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Texas Appellate Hall of Fame insights and experience By Dylan O. Drummond The Society and the with historians, Texas Supreme Court Appellate Section archivists, and court Justice Don Willett and cosponsored the Texas officials at the American Gibson Dunn Appellate Appellate Hall of Fame Association for State and Constitutional Induction Ceremony at and Local History’s The Taming Judicial Civics Law practice group co- the Four Seasons. Annual Meeting. presentation Bill Chriss honors chair Jim Ho have been Read more... Read more... The nominees Chief Justice Pope nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Read more... 2017 Briefing Attorney Breakfast Book Reviews Brings Court Family Together Calendar of Events By Mary Sue Miller The Key of Life: A Review of About 80 current and former justices, David O. Brown’s Called to Rise briefing attorneys, staff By Rachel Palmer Hooper Membership & More attorneys, staff and It is well chronicled that their guests gathered at Brown understands pain Officers, Trustees & Court Liaison the Texas Law Center. and tragedy. Some call BA Breakfast 2017-18 Member Upgrades Read more... attendees it empathy, but I think it is much more. Brown 2017-18 New Member List uses his perspective to acknowledge others. Join the Society Over Here: Saving Texas History Read more... One War at a Time Visit the Society on Twitter and Facebook! By David A. Furlow @SCOTXHistSocy When the Texas General A Review of Bexar County, Texas, Land Office announced FB: Texas Supreme Court Historical Society that it would preserve, District Court Minutes 1838-1848 digitize, and share the By David A. Furlow © 2017 Texas Supreme Court Historical Society history of “Texas and Like a feedstock in the Great War” at its a manufacturing 2017 symposium, the process, courthouse Society answered the records constitute the call to alms. bottleneck assets, i.e., Read more... the raw, unprocessed, recorded facts of our legal history. Read more... Message from the Hon. Dale President Wainwright he Society opened the fall season with an unusual number of special events. Our Tpremier event, the Annual John Hemphill Dinner, was at the Four Seasons Hotel on Friday, September 8 and was a great success. As you will see in the story featured in this issue of the Journal, the keynote speaker was the Honorable Diane P. Wood, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Board member Tom Leatherbury chaired the Dinner Planning Committee, and he and the committee members did an admirable job. Thanks also to the Society’s Administrative Coordinator, Mary Sue Miller, for organizing the dinner and the receptions that preceded it. Earlier the same day, the Supreme Court and the Society cosponsored a Portrait Dedication Ceremony to unveil retired Justice Scott Brister’s portrait and present it to the Court. Planning these ceremonies is an important function of the Society, fulfilling its mission of preserving significant artifacts of the Court. Board member Bill Ogden heads the Society’s Portrait Committee and joined me and many other Society members at the ceremony to congratulate Justice Brister. Photos from the ceremony appear on page 68. The day before the Dinner and Portrait Dedication, on September 7, the Society cosponsored the Texas Appellate Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Four Seasons during the State Bar of Texas Advanced Civil Appellate Seminar. Posthumously inducted, this year’s honorees are Chief Justice Jack Pope, who of course had strong ties to the Society; Helen A. Cassidy, long-time chief staff attorney for the Fourteenth Court of Appeals; and Texas Tech Law School Professor Donald M. Hunt, whose teachings and moot court mentorships spawned numerous accomplished advocates in the Texas bar. This event is spotlighted on page 70. Another important Society-sponsored event, the annual Briefing Attorney Breakfast, was at the State Bar’s Law Center the morning after the Hemphill Dinner. Some 80 past and present justices and briefing attorneys gathered to break bread, and we all had a great time. See the story by Mary Sue Miller on page 72. The Society was also pleased to sponsor the Texas General Land Office’s Save Texas History Symposium on Saturday, September 16. This year’s symposium focused on Texas’s role in World War I, and the Society sponsored a presentation by Texas State University Professor Patricia Shields on the women’s peace movement during that war. David Furlow’s account of the symposium begins on page 74. 1 The next event on our calendar is the fall meeting of the Society’s Board of Trustees on Wednesday, October 18 at the Law Center in Austin. The luncheon speaker will be University of Texas Film Professor Don Graham, who will discuss how the movie Giant changed Texas history and the world. It was a great start to what promises to be another exciting and productive year for the Society. DALE WAINWRIGHT is a shareholder with Greenberg Traurig, LLP and chairs its Texas Appellate Practice Group. He is a former Justice on the Supreme Court of Texas. Return to Journal Index 2 Executive Director’s Page In the Aftermath of a Historic Hurricane, Texas Courts and Lawyers Make Their Own History Sharon Sandle emembering history is very different from living through it, as the last few Rmonths in Texas have dramatically illustrated. The impact of Hurricane Harvey on Houston and the Gulf Coast of Texas has been repeatedly described as “historic.” But the people living in those areas would surely have preferred not to be making history. This issue of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society Journal is devoted to water law. So often in Texas, when the law takes on the issue of water, the impetus is a scarcity of water. But sometimes Texas is faced with the opposite problem, as has been the case over the last several months. The law is not silent when the problem is more water than we need, and the history of the impact of storms like Harvey on the lives of ordinary Texans can be found in the way the Texas courts addressed the aftermath of hurricanes. The reported cases in Texas are full of names that most Texans will readily recognize—Ike, Rita, Alicia, Carla, and Celia—as well as the many unnamed storms that have battered the Texas coast. On July 21, 1909, a category 3 hurricane hit the Texas coast with winds of 130 miles per hour, causing two million dollars’ worth of damage and resulting in 41 deaths.1 The Galveston Court of Civil Appeals in 1912 heard a case between the Santa Fe Railway Company and Texas Star Flour Mills.2 The case did not involve millions or even thousands of dollars.