In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a jury in Dallas awards a woman $450,000 in a revenge porn lawsuit, Dallas lawyers secure a $30 million win in an Illinois mesothelioma case and a federal judge in Houston brings a rare, early end to a patent case following a Markman hearing.
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Dallas County Court at Law No. 5
Jury Awards $450K in Revenge Porn Case
A woman who was presented with an ultimatum from a rebuffed would-be suitor who told her she could either marry him or he would send sexually explicit images of her to her mother was recently awarded $450,000 in damages by a Dallas County jury.
Sadaf Khan filed the so-called revenge porn lawsuit against Syed Mohammed Bilal in July 2021. Bilal met Khan while she was working at an insurance agency he patronized. After she refused his attempts to begin a romantic relationship, he allegedly hacked her phone and gained access to pornographic images and videos.
Armed with those materials, Khan alleged, Bilal told her if she refused to marry him he’d send the images to her family and friends.
“She still refused his offer of marriage,” the suit alleged. “True to his word, he sent the pornography to Ms. Khan’s mother. He then began campaign of slandering Ms. Khan to everyone who would listen, saying that they were married, even though he is already married, and that she cheated on him, is promiscuous and is lesbian. As result of his slander, Ms. Khan lost her job, her car, and her house.”
Trial lasted one day and the jury returned its verdict Dec. 14, according to court records, finding Bilal liable for the unlawful disclosure of intimate visual material and that he made the disclosure with malice. Khan was awarded $140,000 for past mental anguish, $10,000 for future mental anguish and $300,000 in exemplary damages stemming from the finding of malice.
The case was tried in Dallas County Court at Law Judge Nicole Taylor’s courtroom.
Khan is represented by Jonathan Wharton of Fort Worth.
Bilal is represented by Nicholas H. Shahbazi and C. Daniel Herrin of Herrin Law.
The case number is CC-21-02822-E.
Southern District of Texas
Houston Judge Issues Rare Defense Win in Markman Ruling
In a rare win at the claim-construction stage of a patent dispute, Houston-based Wellmatics recently defeated infringement claims lodged by Weatherford-based Canatex.
Canatex had sued Wellmatics in September 2022, according to court documents, alleging Wellmatics was infringing its patent for device used in oil and gas drilling called a downhole release tool. The release tool is used to release tool string stuck miles deep in an oil well via “an internal source of fluid pressure.”
The patent at issue contained five disputed claim phrases, and Canatex conceded that one of them contained what it called a “clear clerical error” that could be judicially corrected, while Wellmatics argued the phrase is indefinite and should render the patent invalid.
The part of the phrase in question, Canatex alleged, erroneously referenced “the connection profile of the second part” or the release tool when it should have said “the connection profile of the first part.”
U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett signed the seven-page order ending the case Dec. 14, after agreeing the alleged error was not evident from the face of the patent and that the “correction to the claim is not as simple as plaintiff makes it seem.”
In part, Judge Bennett noted that at the Markman hearing counsel for Canatex was questioned about seeking a correction at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and stated that while that was possible, “[t]ime is of the essence” and “judicial correction is an avenue that is available to the patent holder.”
“However, plaintiff’s counsel could not cite to any cases wherein the court judicially corrected a non-obvious error in a patent because the PTO would take too long to do so,” Judge Bennett wrote. “… Plaintiff’s refusal to seek correction from the PTO, despite knowing that it would be proper to do so, further suggests that the error in the ‘122 patent is not evident on its face.”
Canatex is represented by Munira Jesani, Stephen D. Zinda and Jesus Cabello of Cabello Hall Zinda in Houston.
Wellmatics is represented by Aimee Fagan, Amanda Crawford-Steger and Phillip M. Aurentz of Sidley Austin.
The case number is 4:22-cv-03306.
Cook County Circuit Court
Dallas Lawyers Secure $30M Mesothelioma Verdict
Bridgestone Firestone was hit with a $30 million verdict Dec. 21 for the mesothelioma death of a man who jurors were told was only exposed to asbestos secondhand by his father who for decades worked at a tire manufacturing facility.
Thomas Jackson was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer of the membrane that lines the body’s abdominal organs, and died five weeks later when he was 64. His wife, Dorothy, filed this lawsuit in Illinois not long after. Jurors heard that Jackson’s father was a manager at a facility that used talc in its manufacturing processes, which he brought home on his clothing.
Jurors heard nine days of testimony documenting Thomas Jackson’s exposure to asbestos back to 1965 and deliberated for just an hour and a half before rendering a verdict.
The jury’s $30 million award was apportioned as follows: $8.66 million for loss of society to Dorothy Jackson, $2.48 million for her grief, sorrow and mental suffering and $5.25 million in lost earnings.
For the survival action brought on behalf of Dorothy Jackson, the jury awarded $3.71 million for the pain and suffering of Thomas Jackson, $1.24 million for the loss of normal life sustained by Thomas Jackson and $8.66 million for the emotional distress experienced by Thomas Jackson.
Jackson is represented by Benjamin Braly and Sam Iola of Dean Omar Branhan Shirley in Dallas and Michael and Robert Cooney of Cooney & Conway in Chicago.
Firestone was represented by attorneys Tom Woodward, Bill Farley, Jim Lyons and William Ringhofer.
The case is Dorothy J. Jackson, Independent Administrator of the Estate of Thomas J. Jackson, Deceased v. A.W. Chesterton Company et al., no. 19 L 009793 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.
The case number is 19 L 009793.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Netflix Has Injunction in Criminal Prosecution Upheld
Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin won’t be able to proceed with his attempt to criminally prosecute Netflix for allegedly advertising and promoting child pornography, after a three-judge panel recently upheld a trial court’s finding that the prosecution was brought in bad faith.
The indictment was based on Netflix’s airing of Cuties, a film starring preteen girls in dance competition. Babin “selectively presented evidence to the grand jury, and inexplicably charged Netflix for a scene that involved a verifiably adult actress,” the Fifth Circuit wrote.
Those actions led to Netflix securing an injunction against the prosecution.
Babin filed notice he was appealing the ruling from U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale in December 2022, according to court records, arguing his actions were justified and tied to prosecutorial discretion.
The panel noted that Judge Truncale issued his ruling following a seven-hour evidentiary hearing featuring the testimony of Babin.
“But Babin’s repeated appeals to prosecutorial discretion really only serve to invite the question rather than answer it,” the panel wrote. “Like any other public official, prosecutors can exercise their discretion in good faith or bad. So to say that a particular decision was merely an exercise of discretion does not bring us any closer to resolving the issue, at least in Babin’s favor.”
Babin is a former actor and model, who played a role in the 2003 movie School of Rock and appeared as the love interest in music videos for both Paris Hilton and Alanis Morissette. In his modeling career, he appeared in advertisements for Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein and more.
Judges Don R. Willett, Jacques L. Wiener Jr. and Dana M. Douglas sat on the panel that issued the Dec. 18 ruling.
Netflix is represented by Joshua J. Bennett of Carter Arnett and David Prichard of Prichard Young.
Babin is represented by Kathryn Cherry and Christopher Lindsey of the Texas solicitor general’s office.
The case number is 22-40786.
Panel Chides ‘Empty-Handed’ SEC, Vacates Rule After Missed Deadline
Seven weeks after a three-judge panel determined a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring certain disclosures about stock buybacks was “arbitrary and capricious” and needed revisions, the court has vacated the rule after the SEC failed to “correct the defects” in the rule.
“The SEC claims to have ‘worked diligently to ascertain the steps necessary to comply with the court’s remand order,’” the panel wrote in the Dec. 19 opinion. “Yet the agency has nothing to show for its efforts. It returns to this court empty-handed, admitting that it ‘was not able to ‘correct the defects in the rule’ within 30 days.’ The rule remains no less flawed — and no less unlawful — than it was on October 31, 2023.
The panel that issued the October ruling giving the SEC 30 days to correct the rule included Judges Jerry E. Smith, Leslie H. Southwick and Stephen A. Higginson. In the Dec. 19 ruling, Judge Higginson recused himself and the opinion was issued by a quorum.
The court previously found that the SEC had failed to respond to concerns from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others about the economic implications of the rule.
“As explained above, the rule’s primary benefit — decreasing investor uncertainty about motivations underlying buybacks — is inadequately substantiated,” the October panel held. “Almost every part of the SEC’s justification and explanation of the rule reflects the agency’s concern about opportunistic or improperly motivated buybacks.”
The Chamber of Commerce is represented by Noel Francisco, Brinton Lucas, Brian Rabbitt and Charles E.T. Roberts of Jones Day.
The SEC is represented by its own Ezekiel Hill, Dominick V. Freda and Theodore Weiman.
The case number is 23-60255.