Author Archives: Judith El Masri
Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)
The federal law to regulate telephone solicitations is known as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA); implemented by President Bush over 30 years ago. Any person, business, or entity that conducts telephone solicitations should comply with the TCPA; this includes voice calls, faxes, VoIP calls, and text messages. The TCPA also introduced the requirement… Read More »
Defective Subpoenas
Municipal law enforcement agencies are accustomed to receiving records requests from the public seeking accident reports and incident reports, often for insurance purposes. In addition to these frequent requests, criminal defense attorneys often attempt to obtain police incident records, body and dash camera videos, and other police records by filing and serving a subpoena… Read More »
ETJ: Extraterritorial Jurisdiction
All cities have city limit lines; you have seen road signs when you leave one city and enter another on the highway. The notion of city limits is one most are familiar with. Given the well-understood concept of city limits –what the heck is a City’s ETJ? Webster’s Dictionary defines the word extraterritorial as… Read More »
Fraudulent Filings
Following the Randle Law Office blog last week on ministerial acts, county clerks, district court clerks, and municipal court clerks normally must accept all court filings as a responsibility of their position. Accepting filings normally is not discretionary, however, municipal court administrators or clerks accepting filings are enabled by State law to analyze and… Read More »
Municipal Authority to Slow Drivers Down
In Texas, most of the side streets and residential streets in cities have a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. There is a reason for this; it is by statutory design. In my opinion though, it is not uncommon that no matter what Texas road you are driving on most of the drivers… Read More »
Film Friendly and Music Friendly Designation for Texas Communities
The Texas Film Commission’s Film Friendly Program (FFTX) trains municipal leaders about the film production process and how to generate economic development by facilitating filming requests in their community. The program started in 2007 as a certification process, and a marketing program initiated and overseen by the Texas Film Commission. The Texas Film Commission… Read More »
Municipal Code Enforcement
This blog follows my earlier blog regarding Texas Municipal Courts. Most Texans have received a parking ticket or traffic ticket and are likely familiar with the municipal court in the city they reside. In addition to the prosecution of traffic and parking offenses, city municipal courts also have the jurisdiction to enforce the city… Read More »
Sovereign Citizens
Municipal courts across Texas in cities of all sizes have encountered individuals that claim to be “sovereign citizens”. Often encountered in municipal court but their numbers are rising so they may also be employees, residents or municipal utility customers. It is likely that all municipal prosecutors, municipal court administrators and judges have encountered individuals… Read More »
Texas Water Primer
Texas has the second largest state economy and the ninth largest in the world. The Texas economy and the 29.5 million Texas residents are entirely dependent upon access to adequate water. According to the Texas Comptroller, the State Water Plan prepared by the Texas Water Development Board anticipates that municipal water need (amount by… Read More »
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Employees have protections afforded by Federal and State law and can’t be terminated from employment nor denied employment for discriminatory reasons. It is fairly common knowledge that pregnant women may not be discriminated against in the hiring process or in the workplace due to their pregnancy. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) is an amendment… Read More »