In re Allied Chemical Corporation

In In re Allied Chemical Corporation, 227 S.W.3d 652 (Tex. 2007), the dissent argued that because the plaintiffs moved to deconsolidate their cases after the relators filed a petition for writ of mandamus, the petition for writ of mandamus was moot. Id. at 664 (Jefferson, C.J., dissenting). In response to the mootness issue raised by the dissent, the Allied Chemical majority noted that the plaintiffs had refused to provide assurance that they would not seek future consolidated trials, and that fact made the situation capable of repetition, yet evading review. Id. at 655. The Supreme Court explained that the situation was "fully capable of repetition, and if review can be evaded by the modification of orders pending mandamus proceedings, the defendants would be put to the repeated expense of seeking review only to have it denied by last-minute changes in the trial court's orders. An appellate court's jurisdiction cannot be manipulated in this way." Id.