Ooh Chupp tipping his hand that he's not dismissing the 5 causes?
I think he's reading too much into it. I don't think Chupp thought about it as much as Nick is. However, Chupp may have encountered three month slapdowns, who knows? Three months may be all it takes an appeals court to point out he done goofed again, especially considering the expedited nature of TCPA appeals.
Also he got one thing slightly wrong. All TCPA appeals are expedited, whether interlocutory or not.
"An appellate court shall expedite an appeal or other writ, whether interlocutory or not, from a trial court order on a motion to dismiss a legal action under Section 27.003 or from a trial court's failure to rule on that motion in the time prescribed by Section 27.005." Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 27.008(b).
"The court could judge that Chupp handled the hearing just fine"
Yeah, sure, if they all walked in that courtroom stumbling drunk like Chupp likely did for the TCPA hearing.
Appeals courts don't have some hearing where they shoot from the hip and rule on shit they haven't even read. The record is all on paper and the decision is made based on matters already in the record. Neither side can just inundate the court with additional paper, since they're limited to what's already in the record. Pleadings are on strict page limits that can only be exceeded for good cause.
There is oral argument, but it's fairly late in the process, when the judges have, in all likelihood, already reached a decision, and the oral argument is judge-directed, with the judges asking counsel about specific points that interest them, with limited time, as in only a few minutes in whole, for any free form argument. For that matter, the judges can even eat up all your time with questions and not give you any.
Oral argument is pretty much a waste of time, rather than being the main event as it is in a trial court.
