A Texas appeals court on Thursday overturned a judge's ruling that had voided the marriage of a transgender widow whose firefighter husband died battling a blaze.

The 13th Texas Court of Appeals sent the case of Nikki Araguz back to the lower court, saying "there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding sex and whether the marriage was a same sex marriage."

In 2011, state District Judge Randy Clapp in Wharton County ruled that the marriage between Nikki Araguz and her husband Thomas Araguz was "void as a matter of law."

Thomas Araguz's mother and his first wife had challenged the marriage's validity, arguing the fallen firefighter's estate should go to his two sons because Nikki Araguz was born a man and Texas does not recognize same-sex marriage.

Nikki Araguz, 38, had argued in court she had done everything medically and legally possible to show she is female and was legally married under Texas law and that she's entitled to widow's benefits.

Kent Rutter, Nikki Araguz's attorney, said his client was very pleased by Thursday's ruling.

"This decision recognizes that transgender Texans have the right to marry the person that they love," he said.

Attorneys for Simona Longoria, Thomas Araguz's mother, and Heather Delgado, his ex-wife, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a shareholders lawsuit filed against BP Alaska in the wake of two oil spills in 2006 on the North Slope that exposed problems with the company's pipeline maintenance program.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the U.S. District Court of Western Washington on several claims.


Shareholders sued BP in 2008, claiming management made misleading statements about the conditions of the company's pipelines, and its maintenance and leak detection program after the first spill of 200,000 gallons onto the North Slope tundra two years earlier. The lawsuit claims BP made the statements knowingly or with deliberate recklessness.

The shareholders claim BP's share price fell 4 percent after the second spill five months later and the subsequent field shutdown for maintenance.

The Associated Press left messages seeking comment for attorneys on both sides of the case.

BP spokeswoman Dawn Patience said in an emailed statement that the company had not had an opportunity to study the decision, so "it would not be appropriate to comment."

BP Exploration Alaska Inc. was fined $20 million in 2007 after pleading guilty to a federal environmental crime for failing to prevent the crude spill, the largest ever at Prudhoe Bay.

The problems became known after the March 2006 spill prompted the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency to open an investigation into maintenance practices at the 30-year-old field.

They found that thick sludge caked along the bottom of the leaky pipe was protecting colonies of bacteria that produce a corrosive acid. The acid had eaten an almond-sized hole in the steel over the course of several years, and that's where the spill occurred.