Opinion

Can a trial court reviewing allegations of family violence affecting child custody have, along with that, order OAG to change how it has flagged the case file in a federal database?

Although the Court’s analysis dealt with a federal regulatory system, it approached this question as a matter of state statutory interpretation. The relevant list of statutory remedies included a catch-all provision “any other order.” The Court emphasized that it was evaluating that phrase within the larger context, not taken in isolation.

When construing statutes, or anything else, one cannot divorce text from context. The meaning of words read in isolation is frequently contrary to the meaning of words read contextually in light of what surrounds them. Given the enormous power of context to transform the meaning of language, courts should resist rulings anchored in hyper-technical readings of isolated words or phrases. The import of language, plain or not, must be drawn from the surrounding context, particularly when construing everyday words and phrases that are inordinately context-sensitive.

Against that background, the Court explained that Texas had designed the Office of Attorney General as its “Title IV-D agency, [which] must collect, store, and maintain” certain information required by federal law — information that included this flag.

The Court concluded that the phrase “any other order” was not meant to upset this balance, nor did it create a distinct right to judicial review under state law of the agency’s decision whether to flag the file in the federal database.