Texas Supreme Court curbs Harris County judge in Union Pacific case

The Texas Supreme Court said a Harris County district court went beyond its authority when it referred a judicial question to a federal board in a Union Pacific Railroad Company injury case, a ruling that narrows how local judges can handle similar disputes tied to Houston rail accidents.

The decision came out of an appeal from the 129th District Court of Harris County and centered on separation of powers, putting the county court’s role under a sharper spotlight in one of the region’s most closely watched railroad liability fights. In practice, the ruling means Harris County judges cannot offload core judicial questions to an outside federal body when railroad cases land in their courtrooms.

The dispute involves Union Pacific and Mary Johnson, whose lawsuit has already moved through a high-stakes round of Texas appellate review. The Texas Lawbook reported that Union Pacific won a new trial after an error in the jury charge, in a case it described as involving Johnson, who drunkenly fell asleep on the tracks in a seated position and later sued for her injuries. That underlying fight has become a test of how far juries, trial judges, and reviewing courts can go in assigning fault and damages in railroad injury claims.

The practical effect reaches beyond one lawsuit. For Harris County courts, the ruling limits one procedural option in future high-dollar cases: a judge cannot send a judicial issue to a federal board simply because a railroad dispute raises difficult questions. That keeps the decision-making where Texas courts say it belongs, inside the state judiciary, and it could shape how future county judges manage complex liability cases involving trains, pedestrians, and injury claims near the Union Pacific lines that cross Houston.

The broader backdrop is a string of headline-grabbing verdicts and appeals around Union Pacific in Texas. A Houston Chronicle result described a woman who fell asleep on train tracks in Houston’s Fifth Ward and lost a $73 million award. Law360 also reported that a Texas panel probed a $557 million Union Pacific train injury verdict. Together, the cases show how railroad litigation in Harris County has become a proxy fight over local accountability, jury power, and the limits of judicial authority in some of the state’s biggest civil cases.