Ron Sommers, as Chapter 7 Trustee for Alabama and Dunlavy, Ltd., Flat Stone II, Ltd., and Flat Stone, Ltd., and as Successor in Interest to Jay Cohen, Individually and as Trustee of the Jhc Trusts I and Ii v. Sandcastle Homes, Inc.

in which Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, and Justice Boyd joined.

Black’s Law Dictionary tells us that to “expunge” is “[t]o remove from a recordt;] ... to erase or destroy.”1 Today we must decide just how much notice is “erased” or “destroyed” when a statute expunges a notice of pending litigation, or lis pendens. Sandcastle Homes, Inc., and NewB'iss Property, LP, each bought real property involved in a title dispute. The two companies prevailed at the summary-judgment stage, successfully arguing that Property Code section 12.0071—the lis pendens-ex-punction statute—eliminated…