The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

Janet Elliott

Janet has deep knowledge of Texas government, including the Texas Legislature and Texas Supreme Court. Her policy expertise includes public and higher education funding and policy, civil justice, pension and investment funds, and state budget. Janet's news media career has also included stops at the Houston Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal and Texas Lawyer.

Texas Recovers $1 Billion by Joining Whistleblowers in Medicaid Fraud Litigation – Update

Long known for its business-friendly litigation climate, Texas has quietly become the national leader in using the courthouse to punish one set of corporations, pharmaceutical companies that cheat government health programs. Teaming up with company insiders and others who claim to know of wrongdoing by suppliers to the Texas Medicaid program, the state over the last decade has recovered more than $1 billion from suits accusing drug manufacturers and health care providers of overpricing and fraud.

Janet Elliott

Court Hears ‘Common-Sense’ Arguments on Business Tax Fairness

A plain reading of the Texas Constitution’s requirement that taxes be “equal and uniform” should sound the death knell for the state’s revised franchise tax, a lawyer for food and beverage giant Nestle USA told the Texas Supreme Court. Not so fast, said the state’s lawyer. The Texas Legislature has authority to pick winners and losers by distinguishing among classifications of businesses.

Janet Elliott

Managing a Crisis: Oil Spill Case Tests Sutherland’s Rachel Clingman

Hired by rig owner Transocean just days after the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion, Rachel Giesber Clingman approached the case with her trademark relentless preparation. Her early work proved critical, as she faced a maze of complex litigation, Congressional hearings and the challenge of leading a team of independent trial lawyers. For Clingman, the case she is reluctant to discuss is the high point of a 20-year career, showcasing, and at times testing, the skills that have propelled her from a small Texas Hill Country town to her current position, at age 45, as the go-to defender of energy companies in trouble.

Janet Elliott

Longview Energy Wins $500 Million Land Transfer in Eagle Ford Case

For a small oil and gas company like Dallas-based Longview Energy, the chance to obtain a lease in the red-hot Eagle Ford Shale was an opportunity that doesn’t come along every day. So it was a huge disappointment in 2010 when a promising lease of 46,000 acres was rejected by two of the company’s directors, representatives of The Huff Energy Fund, a New Jersey private equity company that owns 39 percent of Longview. What Longview did not know is that three days earlier, the very same land had been secured by a portfolio group that was 99 percent owned by the equity fund. Now, a South Texas judge has awarded Longview Energy the rights to the land valued at more than $500 million. It is one of the largest judgments ever involving the Eagle Ford play.

Janet Elliott

Texas Justices Reverse $46 Million Award in Defective U-Haul Truck Case

The Texas Supreme Court threw out a $46 million award to a man who was crushed by a rolling U-Haul truck, finding that evidence of safety problems in Canadian trucks was improperly admitted in a Dallas County trial. The justices said there is enough evidence for a re-trial on negligence and actual damages, but rendered a take-nothing judgment on the jury’s gross negligence findings and punitive damages. The six-person jury’s initial award of $84 million in the case was the fifth largest verdict in the nation in 2008, according to Dunn & Bradstreet. V&E's Tom Leatherbury represents U-Haul.

Janet Elliott

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