diff --git a/pavelib/paver_tests/test_paver_quality.py b/pavelib/paver_tests/test_paver_quality.py
index a524d5a287..30836c4cf7 100644
--- a/pavelib/paver_tests/test_paver_quality.py
+++ b/pavelib/paver_tests/test_paver_quality.py
@@ -4,11 +4,12 @@ Tests for paver quality tasks
 import os
 import tempfile
 import unittest
-from mock import patch, MagicMock
+from mock import patch, MagicMock, mock_open
 from ddt import ddt, file_data
 
 import pavelib.quality
 import paver.easy
+import paver.tasks
 from paver.easy import BuildFailure
 
 
@@ -63,6 +64,19 @@ class TestPaverRunQuality(unittest.TestCase):
     def setUp(self):
         super(TestPaverRunQuality, self).setUp()
 
+        # test_no_diff_quality_failures seems to alter the way that paver
+        # executes these lines is subsequent tests.
+        # https://github.com/paver/paver/blob/master/paver/tasks.py#L175-L180
+        #
+        # The other tests don't appear to have the same impact. This was
+        # causing a test order dependency. This line resets that state
+        # of environment._task_in_progress so that the paver commands in the
+        # tests will be considered top level tasks by paver, and we can predict
+        # which path it will chose in the above code block.
+        #
+        # TODO: Figure out why one test is altering the state to begin with.
+        paver.tasks.environment = paver.tasks.Environment()
+
         # mock the @needs decorator to skip it
         self._mock_paver_needs = patch.object(pavelib.quality.run_quality, 'needs').start()
         self._mock_paver_needs.return_value = 0
@@ -71,7 +85,7 @@ class TestPaverRunQuality(unittest.TestCase):
         self.addCleanup(patcher.stop)
         self.addCleanup(self._mock_paver_needs.stop)
 
-    @unittest.skip("TODO: TE-868")
+    @patch('__builtin__.open', mock_open())
     def test_failure_on_diffquality_pep8(self):
         """
         If pep8 finds errors, pylint should still be run
@@ -90,7 +104,7 @@ class TestPaverRunQuality(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(_mock_pep8_violations.call_count, 1)
         self.assertEqual(self._mock_paver_sh.call_count, 1)
 
-    @unittest.skip("TODO: TE-868")
+    @patch('__builtin__.open', mock_open())
     def test_failure_on_diffquality_pylint(self):
         """
         If diff-quality fails on pylint, the paver task should also fail
@@ -109,19 +123,20 @@ class TestPaverRunQuality(unittest.TestCase):
         # And assert that sh was called once (for the call to "pylint")
         self.assertEqual(self._mock_paver_sh.call_count, 1)
 
-    @unittest.skip("TODO: Fix order dependency on test_no_diff_quality_failures")
+    @patch('__builtin__.open', mock_open())
     def test_other_exception(self):
         """
         If diff-quality fails for an unknown reason on the first run (pep8), then
         pylint should not be run
         """
         self._mock_paver_sh.side_effect = [Exception('unrecognized failure!'), 0]
-        with self.assertRaises(Exception):
+        with self.assertRaises(SystemExit):
             pavelib.quality.run_quality("")
+            self.assertRaises(Exception)
         # Test that pylint is NOT called by counting calls
         self.assertEqual(self._mock_paver_sh.call_count, 1)
 
-    @unittest.skip("TODO: TE-868")
+    @patch('__builtin__.open', mock_open())
     def test_no_diff_quality_failures(self):
         # Assert nothing is raised
         _mock_pep8_violations = MagicMock(return_value=(0, []))