A federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas on Tuesday declared a mistrial in a commercial case after a COVID-19 outbreak among participants of the jury trial temporarily closed the Sherman federal courthouse and left the parties with less than six jurors.
During a telephonic hearing Tuesday afternoon, District Judge Amos Mazzant, III declared a mistrial after lawyers from both sides confirmed with the court that they could not come to an agreement to continue the trial with less than six jurors. Judge Mazzant had originally scheduled for the trial to resume Nov. 30.
On Thursday afternoon, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas sent out a notice that Sherman’s Paul Brown Courthouse will be closed effective immediately and will reopen Dec. 4. The notice said the closure was made “as a precautionary measure out of concern for the health and safety of court employees.” The courthouse was also closed for part of last week after Judge Mazzant paused the trial due to an increase in positive COVID-19 results.
David O’Toole, a clerk with the Eastern District, told The Texas Lawbook Wednesday that 13 of the trial participants — two jurors, three courtroom staff members and eight members from the plaintiffs and defense teams combined had tested positive for coronavirus. However, he couldn’t confirm whether the number of positive cases among the parties was current.
Lawyers for the plaintiff, ResMan LLC and defendants, Karya Property Management and Scarlet Infotech, were not immediately available for comment.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Beck Redden partner Michael Richardson, one of the lawyers for the defense and one of the participants who had tested positive for coronavirus, said that “with the exception of one,” the COVID-19 cases on his team (including his own) have been “pretty mild.” One team member has contracted pneumonia but “they caught it very early and it should not be an issue.”
ResMan’s lead attorney, Hogan Lovells partner Maria Wyckoff Boyce, said at the hearing that the “handful of folks” on her side who have tested positive “have been extremely mild, sometimes asymptomatic.
“All I can say on behalf of my client is that we remain very eager to try this case and look forward to returning as soon as the court deems it appropriate,” Boyce said at the hearing. “I appreciate very much the court’s patience and attempts to save the trial that we have already undertaken.”
Judge Mazzant said at the hearing that he is not conducting any more jury trials between now and the rest of the year, and said they’d look at trying to pick the case back up in January. Before ResMan v. Karya Property Management, Judge Mazzant had presided over seven in-person jury trials without incident since the pandemic began.
For more details on the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, read The Lawbook’s previous report here.