A Tarrant County jury this week has delivered a devastating blow to homebuilder Bob Perry by awarding $51 million to a couple who sued Perry because of their defective house. The back-story to this case is quite lengthy, but the bottom line is that it has been drug out for a decade, and has already been to the Supreme Court of Texas once (where an arbitration award against Perry was overturned).
Perry is the biggest political donor in Texas, and has given enormous sums to each of the nine members of the Supreme Court. So I don't expect the dollar amount of this verdict to stand up on appeal to that court, but the verdict itself may stand. It would be difficult for the Supreme Court to first say the couple in question wasn't entitled to keep their arbitration award but had to go to court instead, and then turn around and say they weren't entitled to go to court either. The appeal will be interesting to watch.
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