Texas Business Court Decision – March 11, 2025
No. 25-BC03A-0001 Safelease Insurance Services LLC v. Storeable, Inc., et al.
[Judge Andrews, Author]
Injunctions. This suit arose out of a dispute over plaintiff’s access to information maintained on defendant’s facility-management software; before the dispute arose, plaintiff, which issues insurance to self-storage facilities, was able to access the information as an authorized user on its customer’s accounts with defendant. Suit was filed in Travis County, and the district court issued a temporary restraining order compelling defendant to restore plaintiff’s access to various software platforms. The matter was then removed to the Business Court. Plaintiff filed for a TRO and a Temporary Injunction to protect its access; the court denied the TRO and set a hearing on the injunction; an injunction granting plaintiff limited injunctive relief was issued, and defendant filed this motion objecting to the order and seeking reconsideration.
Held: First, the request to exclude or disregard certain opinion evidence from the injunction hearing is denied, as exclusion of the contested testimony (opinion evidence from plaintiff’s antitrust economist) would not alter the court’s decision on the injunction; additionally, defendants’ underlying motion to exclude was never set for either written submission or oral hearing, and was not properly presented to the court; the motion to exclude was not filed until a week after the hearing and was too late;
Second, with respect to defendants’ objections to the injunction, on the ground that the decision reached the ultimate merits of the case rather than whether plaintiff demonstrated a “probable” right to recover, the order was not a final disposition; however, to avoid any potential confusion, the court will amend the temporary injunction to further clarify that the holdings in the order are based on the evidence presented at the injunction hearing and do not prevent either party from proving or disproving any of the disputed facts at trial on the merits;
Third, the court will amend the temporary injunction to remove a statement that the parties agreed to the form but not the substance of the order (in light of defendants’ refusal to agree to the form of each side’s proposed orders).