At a Friday morning hearing where the parties in multidistrict litigation involving Hurricane Zeta, Transocean and its offshore employees were scheduled to hash out a motion for sanctions over allegedly inflammatory media coverage of the case, a newly filed motion to kick Transocean’s law firm, Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing, off the case based on an alleged conflict of interest instead took center stage.
The crux of the most recent disqualification motion, filed Tuesday, is AZA’s current employment of associate attorney Karina Sanchez-Peralta, who formerly worked as a law clerk for the firm representing the plaintiffs, Arnold & Itkin. In the underlying case, 23 workers who were aboard the Deepwater Asgard drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico when Hurricane Zeta hit in October 2020 allege the decision by Transocean Offshore Drilling, Triton Voyager Asset Leasing and BOE Exploration to keep the rig operating caused physical and psychological injuries.
On Sept. 11, Arnold & Itkin filed a motion for sanctions and disqualification alleging AZA had pointed members of the news media — specifically The Texas Lawbook and Law360 — to publicly filed documents in the litigation in an effort to taint the jury pool. The Lawbook published an article about AZA’s motion and other developments in the Hurricane Zeta litigation on Sept. 8. The article included only information from documents filed in the MDL.
At Friday morning’s hearing before Harris County District Judge Rabeea Sultan Collier, AZA’s John Zavitsanos asked the court for a few days to file a response to the Sanchez-based motion to disqualify.
“I promise on the souls of my kids that what we are going to respond with paints a completely different picture than this motion that they filed two days ago,” he said.
Judge Collier gave the firm until Tuesday to file a response and has set a hearing on the motion to disqualify for 9 a.m. Oct. 4.
Kyle Findley of Arnold & Itkin told the court AZA should have “asked for a waiver” or “walled off” Sanchez from participating in this case.
“Instead, what they’ve done is make her center stage in this courtroom,” he said. “You cannot do this. You cannot do what they’re doing. The case law is clear.”
Sanchez worked at Arnold & Itkin as a law clerk from Aug. 29, 2022, until Oct. 4, 2022. She graduated from the University of Houston Law Center in May 2023 and started working at AZA in September of that year.
In March 2024, Sanchez was “enrolled as one of AZA’s attorneys of record representing Transocean in this case and just recently in September 2024 took a prominent role in Transocean’s defense and trial preparation,” the motion alleges.
The motion alleges the firm “just learned” that Sanchez “gained knowledge of a substantial amount of privileged and confidential information related to this lawsuit and even emailed some of it to her personal email account in direct violation of her employment agreement with Arnold & Itkin and without the firm’s knowledge or permission.”
The firm pointed to two things in particular that Sanchez allegedly emailed herself — a PowerPoint file with a list of documents compiled by the firm for the Hurricane Zeta litigation and an “extensive” corporate representative deposition outline — that “reveal a confidential work product roadmap for how Arnold & Itkin deposes corporate witnesses.”
The PowerPoint file contained a screenshot of “hot docs,” which the motion describes as “a list of attorney-organized documents that are considered to be plaintiffs’ best evidence at trial,” that relate to this litigation against Transocean.
“Disturbingly, Ms. Sanchez also emailed to her personal email address an extensive corporate representative outline developed by Jason Itkin in a major injury case that provides the Arnold & Itkin confidential roadmap on deposing corporate representatives,” which, the motion alleges, “renders disqualification mandatory.”
Arnold & Itkin alleges that Sanchez not only shared that information with AZA but that the lawyers there then used that information to gain an advantage in this litigation.
“This conduct requires disqualification of AZA under Texas law. There is no discretion or other means of alternative relief,” Arnold & Itkin argues in the motion.
Arnold & Itkin alleges it has recently become “clear” that AZA “intends to utilize Ms. Sanchez as its lead attorney on all issues related to medical damages, witnesses, and records.”
According to her firm bio and LinkedIn, prior to attending law school, Sanchez worked as a registered nurse in the pediatric emergency room at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.
The motion to disqualify zeroes in on Sanchez’ involvement with Dr. Henry Small, an orthopedic surgeon who provided treatment to some plaintiffs in this case and whom AZA “intends to cross-examine at trial.” The firm alleges that Sanchez, while at Arnold & Itkin, worked closely with firm attorney Roland Christiansen in researching a Texas Medical Board report related to Dr. Small.
“Specifically, Ms. Sanchez performed work related to Dr. Small and his prior anticipated testimony regarding a Texas Medical Board complaint — the same documents that Transocean now includes on its exhibit list for this case,” the motion argues.
According to Texas Medical Board records, Dr. Small and the board entered an agreed order in March 2022 requiring that his practice temporarily be monitored by another doctor and that he complete certain continuing education courses after the board found he “did not properly assess a patient and document adequate medical rationale for a surgery, was issued a warning by the Food and Drug Administration for marketing of umbilical cord blood-developed cellular product not supported by evidence, and failed to document informed consent for procedures performed on a patient.”
Arnold & Itkin alleges Sanchez “has not only personally utilized the information about Dr. Small in her trial preparation for this case, but also directly imparted that knowledge to AZA to be used adversely against Plaintiffs during trial.”
“Dr. Small was never deposed in this litigation, and there is no other reasonable explanation for the TMB documents being on Transocean’s exhibit list for impeachment purposes, other than Ms. Sanchez’s direct knowledge of A&I’s privileged information,” the motion argues. “Regardless, confidential work product related to Dr. Small was disclosed to Ms. Sanchez, and AZA intends to use that information against A&I’s clients at the trials in this case.”
At Friday’s hearing, Zavitsanos pushed back on the contention that it must have been information from Sanchez that led the firm to look into the background of Dr. Small.
“We do background checks on everyone,” he said. “We found this on our own.” The case number is 2022-36264.