• Subscribe
  • Log In
  • Sign up for email updates
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

  • Appellate
  • Bankruptcy
  • Commercial Litigation
  • Corp. Deal Tracker/M&A
  • GCs/Corp. Legal Depts.
  • Firm Management
  • White-Collar/Regulatory
  • Pro Bono/Public Service/D&I

Bruce Tomaso

Bruce Tomaso spent more than 30 years as a writer and editor at The Dallas Morning News. When asked what positions he held there, he usually says it’s easier to list those he didn’t.

As enterprise editor on The News’s breaking news desk in the summer of 2016, he played a key role in covering the downtown shooting spree that left five police officers dead. For its coverage, The News was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting.

He spent most of 1997 in Denver covering the federal criminal trials of Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Four years later, he covered McVeigh’s execution.

His first major reporting assignment for The Texas Lawbook was a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of the $119.6 million verdict for 10 young men who’d been molested as children by Rudy Kos, a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The stories earned Bruce and his Lawbook editor, Allen Pusey, the Dallas Bar Association’s 2018 Stephen Philbin Award for Feature Writing.

In 2019, he covered the seven-week medical fraud trial of nine physicians, healthcare executives and others associated with Forest Park Medical Center, a now-defunct Dallas surgical hospital.

He’s a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He and his wife, Dallas attorney Patricia A. Nolan, have one grown son, who is smarter than either of them.

He will drop everything, including preposterous sums of money, to see Lady Gaga, Notre Dame football, or the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.

You can reach Bruce at bruce.tomaso@texaslawbook.net.

Charter/Spectrum Hit With Staggering $7B in Punitive Damages in 2019 Murder of 83-year-old Cable Customer

A Dallas County jury deliberated less than two hours before finding that the cable giant was liable for the exemplary damages on top of an earlier verdict of $375 million in actual damages.

July 26, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Departing-Employee Lawsuits Are a Tough Racket, Panel Says

Experts at a Texas Lawbook CLE say even top litigators struggle with the lightning pace of suits to stop departing workers from stealing customers and trade secrets.

July 18, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Dallas Jury Awards $375M in Charter Communications Technician’s 2019 Murder of 83-Year-Old Woman

The verdict could balloon when the jurors, having found Charter grossly negligent in its hiring and supervision of the killer, begin deliberating punitive damages next Monday.

June 23, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Federal Judge in Dallas Says Disabled NFL Player’s Suit Exposes Pension Plan’s Ugly Workings

In a scalding order, U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer said the pro football retirement plan violated federal regulations, abused its discretion and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in limiting pension benefits for former running back Michael Cloud.

June 22, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

‘I Never Meant to Make Marshall a Patent Lawyers’ Mecca,’ Storied Ex-Judge Says

T. John Ward, a pioneer of the ‘rocket docket,’ says he didn’t think his simple case-management plan – set strict deadlines and hold people to them – would beckon thousands of patent litigants to knock on his Marshall courtroom door.






June 21, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Former Flight Attendant Loses Bid for Removal of Judge in Sex-Assault Suit Against American Airlines

Lawyers for Kimberly Goesling said Tarrant County Judge Kimberly Fitzpatrick should be recused because of ‘irregularities’ in her instructions to the jury that exonerated American last month. The recusal motion was denied Saturday by a San Antonio senior judge brought to Fort Worth to decide the matter.

June 5, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Fort Worth Judge Testifies She Doesn’t Know How Jury Charge Got Messed Up in American Airlines Sex-Assault Case

State District Judge Kimberley Fitzpatrick says she can’t explain why jurors weren’t given the correct form to record their verdict, or how they instead got an outdated version that included an instruction she’d earlier ruled was improper.

June 3, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Austin Jury Rejects Developer’s Tortious Interference Claim over Ambitious Sixth Street Project

The jury found against Elevate Development, an Austin company that sought to acquire and develop six parcels on Sixth Street, in ‘one of the most vibrant parts of Austin.’

June 1, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Senior Judge from San Antonio To Hear Recusal Motion in American Airlines Sex-Assault Case

David Peeples, once lauded by Texas Supreme Court  Chief Justice Nathan Hecht  as the ‘gold standard’ for handling touchy cases, will decide if an improper jury instruction disqualifies a Tarrant County judge from sticking with a former flight attendant’s $26 million suit against the airline

May 27, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

NFL Pension Plan ‘Abused Its Discretion’ by Limiting Brain-Damaged Player’s Benefits,  Federal Judge Rules

At the conclusion of a six-day bench trial in Dallas, U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer ordered a near-doubling of disability payments to former running back Mike Cloud, saying the league’s retirement board ‘spent virtually no time’ looking into his claims.

May 26, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 9
  • Go to page 10
  • Go to page 11
  • Go to page 12
  • Go to page 13
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 20
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Features

  • P.S. — ‘Dean of the Texas Appellate Bar’ Honored, HBA Launches Days of Service and How to Boost Giving to LANWT   - In this week’s column, renowned appellate attorney Mike Hatchell of Haynes Boone is set to receive the Chief Justice Jack Pope Professionalism Award for his decadeslong contributions to appellate law in Texas. The Houston Bar Association also announced its new Days of Service initiative. And the Texas Indigent Defense Commission approved more than $1.7 million in grants to bolster mental health defense services and public defender capacity across rural counties.  September 5, 2025Krista Torralva
  • My Five Favorite Books: Alvin Benton (Vice President, Compliance Officer at Capital One) - Themes of self-determination, grit, speaking truth, and building self-esteem are prominent in my favorite reads, which starts with a landmark autobiography and ends with a children's book.

    Publisher’s note: The Texas Lawbook is pleased to offer this new column in partnership with Texas-based Half Price Books sharing our readers’ favorite reads.
    September 3, 2025Alvin Benton

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Former Energy GC Brock Degeyter Joins Troutman Pepper Locke in Dallas - Degeyter was most recently the general counsel, chief compliance officer, and secretary of Medallion Midstream until its $2.6 billion acquisition by ONEOK, which closed last October. His in-house resume also includes helping lead Summit Midstream's IPO and working on the historic leveraged buyout of TXU Corp.
  • Hunton AK Adds New Leader of Appellate Practice
  • Dallas PE Partner Boomerangs Back to Weil
  • Ret. Judge Barbara Lynn Joins Lynn Pinker
  • Holland & Knight Hires Another Longtime King & Spalding Healthcare Veteran
  • Barnes & Thornburg Adds PE Hire in Dallas
  • McKool Smith Hires High-Ranking U.S. Prosecutor in Dallas
  • Hicks Johnson Hires New Leader of its Appellate Practice 
  • Spencer Fane Adds IP Leader from Wick Phillips
  • DOJ Environmental Lawyer Joins Phelps Dunbar in Austin
More GCs, Lawyers & Firms

Lawyers in the News

Hover right to see full list

Barry Barnett
Wes Bearden
Emily Westridge Black
Michael Burke
Alicia Campbell
John Campbell
Madeleine Carpenter
Alexander Clark
Dawn Pittman Collins
Richard Finneran
Elizabeth Freeman
David Gail
Elizabeth Gibson
David Jones
Frank Lopez
Abbe Lowell
Neal Manne
Billy Marsh
Tom Melsheimer
Tasha Moser
Justin Nelson
Reed O'Connor
Kate Pennartz
John “J.” Pieratt
Danielle Reyes
Christopher Richardson
Randy Sorrels
Harry Susman
Larry Vincent
Victor Vital
Brent Walker
Matt Weybrecht
Melody Wilkinson
Alex Wolens

Firms in the News

Hover right to show full list

A&O Shearman
Bryan Cave
Cozen O'Connor
Haynes Boone
Holland & Knight
Jackson Walker
King & Spalding
Kirkland & Ellis
Law Office of Liz Freeman
Paul Hastings
Porter Hedges
Sorrels Law
Susman Godfrey
Toyota
Troutman Pepper Locke
Willkie
Vinson & Elkins
Weil
Winston & Strawn

Footer

Who We Are

  • About Us
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us
  • Submit a News Tip

Stay Connected

  • Sign up for email updates
  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Premium Subscriber Editorial Calendar

Our Partners

  • The Dallas Morning News
The Texas Lawbook logo

1409 Botham Jean Blvd.
Unit 811
Dallas, TX 75215

214.232.6783

© Copyright 2025 The Texas Lawbook
The content on this website is protected under federal Copyright laws. Any use without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.