Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
This week, Jackson Walker bolstered its labor and employment practice in Houston with the addition of two lawyers from Chamberlain Hrdlicka. Diana Pérez Gomez joins the firm as a partner and Leslie Tan joins as senior counsel.
Dallas-based Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants is taking the American Arbitration Association and one of its arbitrators to court over what it alleges is a “flagrant and stated disregard” for the rule of law that resulted in death penalty sanctions against it.
In an interview with The Texas Lawbook, Craig Stanfield said that closely watching Paul Hastings’ moves over the past year or two fostered his interest in the firm. “I wanted to see their strategy, and it seemed to me they had a pretty well-defined strategy for building, bringing on teams in Dallas and Houston,” he said. “That was very attractive to me. This is a really strategic and ambitious firm, and they have a Texas strategy that is working.”
Charla Aldous has formed Aldous Law with trial lawyers Caleb Miller and Eleanor Aldous, while Brent Walker has launched Brent Walker Law.
CirclesX Recovery, which describes itself as a software and data analytics company, argues MDL Judge Sylvia Matthews granted a motion to dismiss its lawsuit accusing some of the biggest energy companies of manipulating the natural gas market ahead of the 2021 winter storm, “without any analysis or explanation as to how or in what respect Appellant failed to plead its claims.”
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the widow of an oilfield worker sues Apache Corp. over her husband’s heat-related death, lawyers for the driver of a vandalized Tesla tout a first-of-its-kind civil suit, and Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan takes aim at the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act in a concurring opinion where the court wiped out a $28.7 million jury award.
Tate Group Automotive, run by three siblings, has turned to the Texas business court to resolve a $150 million dispute with one-time business partners Reynolds and Reynolds Company and Legacy Automotive Capital. The lawsuit brings claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, misapplication of fiduciary property or civil theft, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, quantum meruit, tortious interference and civil conspiracy.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, who is being asked to declare that eight federal agencies have authority to terminate the collective bargaining agreements with their employees. The lawsuit was filed one day after President Donald Trump issued an executive order exempting employees of the eight federal agencies bringing this lawsuit from federal labor law requirements, purportedly in an effort to “enhance the national security of the United States.” The Office of Personnel Management subsequently instructed those agencies “to take appropriate steps toward terminating their previously negotiated CBAs,” according to the lawsuit.
In June, a New Jersey jury hit Janssen Products with a $150 million verdict. The final judgment trebled damages and assessed a whopping $1.27 billion civil penalty but did ax about $30 million in damages to the states under the False Claims Act after the judge agreed with Janssen that not enough evidence was presented to sustain that portion of the award. Dallas boutique Reese Marketos was brought into the case two years ago to take it to trial.
Roger S. Braugh Sr. played both quarterback and defensive back for the Southern Methodist University football team from 1960 until 1962. He died in March 2019 and an autopsy performed at Boston University showed the cause was stage IV CTE. A Dallas County judge dismissed the suit after agreeing with the NCAA that the two-year deadline to bring the lawsuit had lapsed.
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