After $250k in political support from Apache Corp., Texas Supreme Court does a rare double take

Last fall, it seemed that Apache Corp., the giant Houston oil company, had hit a dead end in a long-running legal battle. A paralegal named Cathryn Davis claimed the company fired her in 2013 for complaining about age and gender discrimination. A jury agreed, awarding $900,000 to her and her attorneys; an appeals court upheld the judgment. The company asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case, but on Oct. 2 it declined. Litigants can ask the state’s highest civil court to reconsider such decisions, but it’s a long shot; nearly 98 percent of the time, it refuses, according to research by the Texas Bar. Nevertheless, Apache notified the Supreme Court it intended to ask for a so-called rehearing. After the company contributed $250,000 in political support to justices seeking re-election, the court changed its mind.

Texas is one of only four states with partisan Supreme Court elections, and Apache’s appeal occurred while two of the nine Republican justices were simultaneously campaigning and making decisions about the company’s case. (In all, four were up for election but two recused themselves from the case because they had worked on Apache v. Davis before it reached the high court.) Three weeks after the court’s denial of the appeal, Apache donated $250,000 to a newly formed political action committee, Judicial Fairness PAC. The Fortune 600 oil company has given money to political candidates before. But state records show the donation to the PAC dwarfed its previous gifts. The contribution appears to be just the second Apache has made in a judicial race; the other was for $2,500 and was made nearly a decade ago. Texas law limits how much PACs can contribute to judicial candidates. Yet there is a loophole: Unlike with direct contributions, there is no ceiling on how much money the groups can spend independently on behalf of candidates. Over the next several days, the Judicial Fairness PAC spent $750,000 on television and radio ads supporting the incumbent Texas Supreme Court justices, records show. Funded heavily by Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which has contributed lavishly in its efforts to rein in large jury awards, among other aims, the PAC spent a total of $4.5 million supporting the four candidates. They were the only races on which the new organization spent money.