Near the end of 2023 the American Tort Reform Association published its annual “Judicial Hellholes” report, portraying the Fifth District Court of Appeals in a negative light.

A version of the report slamming the Fifth District appeared as an op-ed to the Dallas Morning News. In response, David Coale, a prominent appellate attorney at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann published a rebuttal in the DMN, thoroughly dismantling the ATRA’s analysis.