I’ve run the numbers on the reversal rates for the intermediate appellate courts in Texas for the calendar year 2019.  The overall reversal rate for the year was 77%.  To clarify, when the Supreme Court of Texas granted a petition for review, it reversed the court of appeals 77% of the time in 2019.  Some of the courts of appeals performed better than others:

  • First District Court of Appeals — 75% reversal rate
  • Second District Court of Appeals — 78% reversal rate
  • Third District Court of Appeals — 93% reversal rate
  • Fourth District Court of Appeals — 89% reversal rate
  • Fifth District Court of Appeals — 81% reversal rate
  • Thirteenth District Court of Appeals — 62.5% reversal rate
  • Fourteenth District Court of Appeals — 50% reversal rate

The Thirteenth District Court of Appeals and the Fourteenth Court of Appeals beat the average, while the Third District Court of Appeals had a significantly higher-than-average reversal rate.

You will note that I omitted the Sixth through Twelfth District Court of Appeals.  Each of those courts had too few cases taken up by the Texas Supreme Court in 2019 to produce meaningful reversal rates.

Aggregating the 2019 numbers with those I have collected since 2014 reveals the following reversal rates:

The overall reversal rate for these 6 years is 80%.  The First, Third, Eleventh, and Thirteenth District Court of Appeals outperform the average, while the Eighth and Tenth District Court of Appeals have above average reversal rates.

Photo of Mike Northrup Mike Northrup

Mike Northrup is the chair of the appellate practice group at Cowles & Thompson, P.C. He is Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and is a former Chair of the Appellate Law Section of the Dallas…

Mike Northrup is the chair of the appellate practice group at Cowles & Thompson, P.C. He is Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and is a former Chair of the Appellate Law Section of the Dallas Bar Association. He is also a former briefing attorney for the Supreme Court of Texas.

Practice Areas

  • Civil Appeals
  • Labor and Employment Law
  • Insurance Law
  • Municipal Law

Professional Associations

  • Dallas Bar Association, Appellate Law Section
  • Defense Research Institute
  • College of the State Bar of Texas
  • State Bar of Texas, Appellate Section
  • Texas Aggie Bar Association

Education

  • JD, Texas Tech University School of Law (1988)
  • B.S., (Political Science), Texas A&M University (1985)

Bar Admissions

  • State Bar of Texas
  • United States Supreme Court
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • United States District Court, Northern, Southern, and Eastern Districts of Texas