In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a recent ruling from a federal judge in Texas gives more clarity to oil and gas operators regarding the application of old contracts to modern drilling practices, and former Fifth Circuit Judge Gregg Costa gets a win in a gun rights case where he was appointed as amicus counsel to defend the Texas Penal Code.
The Litigation Roundup is a weekly feature highlighting the work Texas lawyers are doing inside and outside the state. Have a development we should include next week? Please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net.
Alexa Shrake contributed to this report.
Northern District of Texas
Amicus Counsel Costa, SMU Prof Prevail in Gun Case
In a Second Amendment case where Texas declined to defend a challenged portion of the state’s penal code, court-appointed amicus counsel Gregg Costa of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Eric Ruben, a professor at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, recently prevailed.
Lead plaintiff Charles Ziegenfuss filed his lawsuit against the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety in October 2024, alleging Texas Penal Code Section 46.03 — which criminalizes possession of firearms at racetracks, sporting events and businesses where alcohol sales account for 51 percent of sales — runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
“Because the Attorney General of Texas declined to defend the merits of the Legislature’s duly-enacted laws, the Court needed to look elsewhere for a defense of the relevant statutory provisions,” U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman wrote in the March 24 order, explaining how Costa and Ruben got involved in the case.
In briefing to the court, Costa and Ruben argued that Texas is a leader in protecting the Second Amendment but has balanced that leadership by maintaining restrictions on carrying firearms into “bars where alcohol is consumed, sporting events where passions run high, and racetracks where crowds, cash and chance collide.”
Judge Pittman wrote that Texans are “arguably among the most prominent protectors of our Second Amendment liberties” but noted that they also “made a decision to balance their rights to firearms with other special factors concerning sensitive places.”
“In such a situation, the Court must proceed with great care at the risk of trampling on the will of the people,” he wrote. “Indeed, lest it be forgotten, Texans can renege on the Firearms Prohibitions if they so choose through their elected representatives. The Court, therefore, holds that the Texas Firearms Prohibitions do not violate the Constitution.”
Costa and Ruben filed a 47-page brief that delved into Texas Reconstruction history, explaining how the gun violence that plagued the new state led to the passage of an 1870 law banning firearms and knives in certain public places.
The following year, a challenge to the law made its way to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld the restrictions and wrote it was “little short of ridiculous that any one should claim the right to carry upon his person any of the mischievous devices inhibited by the statute into a peaceable public assembly, as, for instance into a church, a lecture room, a ball room, or any other place where ladies and gentlemen are congregated together.”
And the brief noted that even after passing permitless carry in 2021, Texas has maintained its “longstanding location restrictions on where Texans can carry guns.”
Going farther back into history, the brief argued prohibitions on carrying arms in sensitive places can be traced back to at least 1328, when an English law on the books barred people from being armed at fairs, markets and in the presence of judges or ministers.
“American colonies carried forward this tradition,” the brief reads, noting at least two colonies passed similar laws.
“Given this lineage of sensitive-places regulations dating back to the Middle Ages, it is unsurprising that courts routinely have upheld such restrictions even as the Supreme Court has struck down other anomalous gun-restrictive practices,” the brief reads.
Because all of the restrictions challenged by Ziegenfuss are “rooted in the nation’s history and tradition,” the brief argues they “survive Second Amendment scrutiny” and therefore the court should grant summary judgment dismissing the case.
Ziegenfuss and the other plaintiffs are represented by R. Brent Cooper and Samuel Walton of Cooper & Scully and Bradley Benbrook and Stephen Duvernay of Benbrook Law Group.
DPS is represented by Zachary Rhines and Kyle Tebo of the attorney general’s office.
The case number is 4:24-cv-01049.
Judge Tosses X Corp. Antitrust Lawsuit
Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by X Corp. that accused a group of advertisers of antitrust violations for conspiring to boycott advertising on the social media site, finding the lawsuit did not state “an antitrust injury.”
In a 56-page opinion and order, Chief Judge O’Connor explained that “a group of competitors who refuse to buy from an upstream supplier can cause antitrust injury if the refusal to deal is meant to allow another upstream supplier to corner the supply market.”
He told readers to think about X’s alleged injury in two ways “to understand why these allegations do not amount to an antitrust claim.”
“First, consider that the conspiracy benefits other social media companies that no longer
must compete with X,” he wrote. “Second, consider that the conspiracy benefits the advertisers who no longer compete with each other to buy X’s advertising space. Either way, no antitrust injury exists.”
The judge also denied X’s request to replead its claims.
“The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice,” he wrote.
X filed its lawsuit in August 2024, naming as defendants the World Federation of Advertisers, Unilever PLC, Unilever United States, Mars Incorporated, CVS Health Corporation and Ørsted A/S. X later added more defendants: Nestle, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmolive, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods and Shell.
Experts who spoke to The Texas Lawbook when the suit was filed were skeptical about the strength of the claims and suggested the decision to file suit in a single-judge division was an example of forum shopping.
The World Federation of Advertisers is represented by Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.
Mars is represented by Cantey Hanger, Underwood Law Firm and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.
CVS is represented by Williams & Connolly, Underwood Law Firm and Brackey & Ellis.
Ørsted is represented by Vinson & Elkins and was dismissed from the lawsuit in July 2025.
Nestle is represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Mayer Brown and Sherrill & Gibson.
Abbott Laboratories is represented by King & Spalding and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
Colgate is represented by Kelly Hart & Hallman, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Lego is represented by Crowell & Moring and Jackson Walker.
Pinterest is represented by Brown Fox.
Tyson is represented by Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, King & Spalding and T&T Law Group.
Shell is represented by Norton Rose Fulbright.
Unilever is represented by Gibson Dunn and was dismissed from the lawsuit in October 2024.
X is represented by John Sullivan and Jace Yarbrough of S|L Law and Andrew K. Mann, Christopher G. Renner, Harmeet K. Dhillon and Jonathan Shaw of Dhillon Law Group.
The case number is 7:24-cv-00114.
Three Family Members Get Prison in $8.5M Tax Fraud Case
Two half-brothers and the father of one of the men were sentenced to prison Friday for their roles in a tax fraud scheme that sought to bilk the federal government out of more than $8.5 million in tax refunds.
David Hunt received 92 months in prison, His son, Baylon Hunt, was sentenced to 38 months in prison and Baylon’s half-brother, Corey Burt, received 94 months in prison for their role in the crime that sought returns in the names of purported trusts controlled by the men. Baylon’s twin brother, Brandon, was convicted alongside his brother and dad during trial in Fort Worth December, his sentencing is set for a later date.
The Hunts, who lived in Arlington, and Burt, who lived in Long Beach, Mississippi, received returns totaling about $1.7 million from the IRS, and prosecutors alleged they used that money to purchase cryptocurrency and luxury goods, including a house, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture.
The defendants were also ordered to pay the government $1.7 million in restitution at their sentencing Friday before U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman.
Baylon Hunt is represented by Mark R. Danielson of Mansfield. Brandon Hunt is represented by J. Warren St. John of Fort Worth. David Hunt is represented by Roderick White of Fort Worth. Burt is represented by federal public defender John M. Nicholson.
The case was prosecuted by Melissa Siskind, Daniel Lipkowitz and Mark McDonald of the Department of Justice.
The case number is 4:25-cr-00146.
Southern District of Texas
Judge Enters $210M Final Judgment, Attorney Fees Still to Come
About three months after businessman Carlo Civelli was awarded $138 million by a federal jury in Houston, a final judgment has been entered that significantly increased the damages he will receive.
Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane entered a final judgment Thursday awarding Civelli $210.3 million. Civelli will also be collecting attorney fees in coming months after the court is briefed on that issue. In December, jurors sided with Civelli in the lawsuit he brought against Phillippe Mulacek, his former business partner at InterOil, which invested in properties in Papua New Guinea for potential oil and gas.
Civelli sued Mulacek after a disagreement about whether Mulacek had to pay back loans from Civelli.
“We are delighted Chief Judge Crane entered judgment on the jury’s verdict in Mr. Civelli’s favor on all his claims and awarded him full damages, prejudgment interest at 6.75%, costs, and attorneys’ fees,” lead attorney Richard Schwartz of Munch Hardt Kopf and Harr said in a statement.
Civelli is also represented by Fred Wahrlich, Michael Harvey and Randall Miller of Munch Hardt Kopf and Harr, Andrew Bender of Andrew Myers, Heather Kabele of Kane Russell Coleman Logan, and Michael Martin of Martin Walton Law Firm
Mulacek is represented by Paul Yetter, Reagan Simpson, Justin Rowinsky and David Gutierrez of Yetter Coleman, Michael M. Fay, Jenny Kim and Valecia Battle of Boies Schiller Flexner, and Warren Harris and Jacob McIntosh of Bracewell.
The case number is 4:17-cv-03739.
New Judge Appointed in GWG Holdings Bankruptcy
Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo V. Rodriguez has been appointed to oversee the GWG Holdings bankruptcy case more than four months after Chief U.S. District Judge Alia Moses granted a motion to recuse U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur from the case.
In an order issued March 16, Chief Judge Moses wrote that the case will continue to be jointly administered.
“To date, various matters remain pending in this lead case, as well as its related adversary proceedings,” Chief Judge Moses wrote. “Yet this is not a typical bankruptcy case given its entanglement with the allegations against Jackson Walker, LLP, David R. Jones, and Elizabeth Freeman. In picking up where Judge Isgur left off, the district court must work closely with the bankruptcy court — a partnership forged from necessity and consummated in the name of judicial economy.”
On Wednesday Chief Bankruptcy Judge Rodriguez entered an order setting a non-evidentiary status conference to take place April 16 in Houston, instructing the parties “must be prepared to discuss the status of” a long list of matters related to the case.
A group of GWG bondholders — who separately are pursuing racketeering charges against several entities (Jackson Walker, Porter Hedges, David Jones and Elizabeth Freeman) they allege were enriched by keeping secret a live-in, intimate relationship between then-bankruptcy judge Jones and bankruptcy lawyer Freeman — had in August asked the court to recuse Judge Isgur and remove Elizabeth Freeman as wind down trustee.
In November, Chief Judge Moses obliged, entering a two-and-a-half-page order agreeing that “to avoid the appearance of impropriety,” she would recuse Judge Isgur from the case. A Dallas-based financial services firm that sells bonds backed by life insurance policies, GWG filed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in April 2022.
The case number is 22-90032.
Western District of Texas
Ovtintiv’s Win Offers Clarity on Application of Pre-Horizontal Drilling JOA’s
The Western District of Texas entered a final judgment in favor of Denver-based Ovintiv USA in a case that addressed an ongoing issue for oil and gas operators: joint operating agreements.
The two-day bench trial concluded with U.S. Judge David Counts ruling against Houston-based McCully-Chapman Exploration, which argued that no contract applied to the horizontal wells at issue.
“McCully’s interpretation that the JOA applies only to wells that fall completely within the Contract Area would require the JOA to expressly preclude or limit wells located partially outside the Contract Area — but no such limitations exist,” Judge Counts wrote. “Instead, the language is broad.”
He wrote that the JOA applies to horizontal wells that “traverse the contract area.”
Judge Counts further found that Ovintic did not breach the JOA when it applied non-consent penalties to renamed wells. The JOA Ovintiv applied was entered in 1982.
He noted that McCully never objected to the application of non-consent penalties until after its change in ownership and until after all the wells were drilled and completed.
“These slight deviations did not change the renamed wells’ target objectives or economic projections and are not uncommon in the industry. Industry custom and practice is that operators need not re-ballot such wells because small changes in surface hole location are not material and would not cause a reasonable non-operator to change its election,” Judge Counts wrote.
The ruling means older JOAs are still applicable.
Austin Brister, M. Alejandra Salas, Marcus Eason and Ashley Vega of McGinnis Lochridge represented McCully. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Samantha Thompson, Cody Rutowski, James Schuelke and Christopher Hogan of Hogan Thompson Schuelke represented Ovintiv.
The case number is 7:24-cv-00018.
Eastern District of Texas
Wayfair, Costco Face Credit Card Patent Suits
Wayfair, Charles Schwab & Co., Truist Bank and Costco Wholesale Corp. are the latest companies to face a patent infringement lawsuit from Induction Devices.
The four lawsuits were filed separately Tuesday over contactless credit card technology. Induction claims the companies infringed several patents covering circuits and memory related to high-frequency identification technology.
The complaints allege Wayfair and Costco infringed on five patents, and Charles Schwab & Co. and Truist Bank infringed on seven patents.
The company’s credit cards technology, which has chips that make tap-to-pay contactless payment possible when being placed near a card reader, is the focus of the complaints.
Induction has also sued Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lowe’s, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Marriott International and Amazon.com Inc.
The cases are before U.S. Judge Rodney Gilstrap.
Trevor Beaty of Shea Beaty is representing Induction.
Counsel for Wayfair, Charles Schwab & Co., Truist Bank and Costco Wholesale Corp. have not filed appearances at this time.
The case numbers are 2:26-cv-00249, 2:26-cv-00247, 2:26-cv-00248, and 2:26-cv-00246.
Texas Supreme Court
New Trial Ordered After Judge Forced Party to Proceed Without Expert
In the only opinion issued by the state’s high court Friday, Justice James P. Sullivan wrote for a unanimous court that a new trial is needed in a case out of Austin after a trial judge denied a motion to substitute an expert and made a party try the case without any expert testimony.
The opinion came in a dispute between Diamond Hydraulics and GAC Equipment, which does business as Austin Crane Service. Austin hired Diamond to repair a crane that later bent while lifting a bridge.
Austin sued, alleging Diamond’s repair work was shoddy and caused its damages. According to the opinion, after the suit was filed and shortly before trial was set to begin, Diamond’s expert “changed jobs, left the state and refused to testify,” so Diamond moved to substitute a new expert.
The trial court denied that request, and Diamond proceeded to trial without the benefit of expert testimony. The jury sided with Austin and awarded about $80,000 in damages and about $382,000 in attorney fees.”
“The district court abused its discretion in finding that Diamond lacked good cause for its late expert designation,” Justice Sullivan wrote. “Rule 193.6(a)’s good-cause standard is a demanding one, and a district court’s discretion in this field is significant. Nevertheless, that standard was met here. The judgment of the court of appeals is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial.”
Diamond is represented by Angie Olalde, Victoria S. Rutherford and Jose A. Vega of Greer, Hertz & Adams.
Austin Crane is represented by Jerry C. Alexander and D. Hunter Polvi of Passman & Jones.
The case number is 24-1049.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Megatel Gets Its Water Services Fight with Mansfield Revived
A lawsuit brought by Megatel Homes against the city of Mansfield that accused the municipality of tortious interference, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and a violation of the Sherman Act by refusing to supply water utility services has been revived.
The fight stems from Megatel’s efforts to get water utility services for a development southwest of Mansfield in Johnson County, a 517-acre plot called the Cipriani Property. Under a 2022 amendment to the water sale and delivery contract the city entered into with the Johnson County Special Utility District, the city must approve of the provision of water within the boundaries of its extraterritorial jurisdictions.
For two-and-a-half years, Megatel and Mansfield tried to reach an agreement. According to the opinion, in exchange for approving the water utility services, Mansfield demanded Megatel consent to annexation of its property, which would result in it being subject to city control and taxation, and required Megatel to pay various development fees that had no “logical relationship” to the provision of water.
Megatel eventually agreed to the terms, but Mansfield “refused to execute the proposed agreement.” And when talks broke down, Megatel filed suit in 2024.
Megatel filed its notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit in September, challenging a ruling from U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay where he determined immunity barred the state law claims against the city. The judge declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the Sherman Act claims Megatel lodged.
“Because we conclude that the Texas Water Code does not clearly articulate and affirmatively express a state policy permitting Mansfield to act anticompetitively, and thus does not provide Mansfield with immunity, we reverse and remand,” the panel wrote in a nine-page opinion issued Thursday.
“We pass no judgment on the merits of Megatel’s Sherman Act claims, nor on its claims under state law.”
The panel explained that the trial court needs to examine whether the Texas Water Code granted Mansfield, rather than the special utility district “the authority to act anticompetitively.”
“Mansfield has not demonstrated that Texas, through its water code, grants the city — and not JCSUD — the authority to monopolize,” the court held.
Judges Stephen A. Higginson, James C. Ho and Catharina Haynes sat on the panel.
Megatel is represented by Barry Abrams and Joshua Huber of Blank Rome and Jeff Tillotson of Tillotson Johnson & Patton
Mansfield is represented by William S. Helfand and Thomas L. Dyer of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith and Gabrielle Smith of Lloyd Gosselink Rochelle & Townsend.
The case number is 25-11006.
Haynes Boone Defends Polaris’ $40M Win
In a short, four-page opinion issued earlier this month, a three-judge panel upheld a nearly $40 million win a jury handed to industrial engineering firm Polaris Engineering in its dispute with port and logistics company Texas International Terminals over the construction of a crude oil refining facility.
The fight was rooted in a 2018 project where Polaris constructed a $150 million crude oil distillation unit, terminal and dock in Galveston. Both parties accused the other of breaching contracts that governed the construction and operation of the facility. A jury sided with Polaris after a trial that lasted five weeks, finding both sides breached but that Texas International breached first.
Texas International filed its notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit in January 2025, seeking to overturn a ruling from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown entering final judgment in Polaris’ favor.
“We find no reversible error,” the Fifth Circuit wrote in affirming Judge Brown’s judgment. “In a diligent review of a voluminous and fact-intensive record, the district court made fair and reasonable rulings on liability and damages, both before and after trial. Texas law aims to give effect to the intent of the parties, and the judgment achieves that result.”
Judges Jerry E. Smith, Jacques L. Weiner Jr. and Stephen A. Higginson sat on the panel that issued the March 17 opinion.
Polaris is represented by Mark Trachtenberg, Polly Fohn and Chloe Warnberg of Haynes Boone and Tony Guerino, Liz Klingensmith, Ryan Steinbrunner, Ben Bernell, and Jon Sink of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
Texas International is represented by Connie Pfeiffer, Lily Hann, Daniel Nightingale and Reagan W. Simpson of Yetter Coleman.
The case number is 25-40024.
Craving more Texas Lawbook litigation coverage? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Take a look at these stories you may have missed in the past few days.
President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Susman Godfrey “violates the First Amendment many times over,” is “odious viewpoint discrimination” and should be declared unconstitutional and illegally unenforceable. With that opening argument, lawyers for Susman Godfrey filed a new brief Friday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to uphold a lower court ruling permanently restraining President Trump’s executive order issued last spring targeting the Houston litigation powerhouse from being enforced. Two other corporate law firms that were the targets of President Trump’s EOs — WilmerHale and Jenner & Block — also filed briefs in their respective cases, which have been consolidated before the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
Without writing a single sentence to explain why, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday officially ended any efforts by tens of thousands of Texas citizens and small businesses to sue power generators for personal injuries, wrongful deaths and property damages suffered during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021. The decision is a huge victory for large power generators such as Luminant, NRG, Calpine, Exelon and Sempra Energy, who argued that the lawsuits, which sought billions of dollars in damages, should be dismissed because the unprecedented weather, not the companies’ actions, was responsible for the injuries and damages.
The three-day trial ended Wednesday, with the jurors deliberating for a day before awarding parents and their young son $1.1 billion in damages. The boy was assaulted by his stepfather, a great-grandson of one of the original investors of Humble Oil, and suffered life-altering injuries.
A daughter’s lawsuit against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, alleging its product contained asbestos that caused her mother’s life-ending mesothelioma cancer, has concluded in a settlement. The settlement reached during the first week of trial was “unexpected.”
Soon after the jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court rendered its verdict on liability and assessed $3 million in compensatory damages, the panel assessed $3 million in the punitive damages phase of the trial. Jurors heard about four weeks of testimony in the landmark case.