Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Michelle Casady is based in Houston and covers litigation and appeals — including trials, breaking news and industry trends — for The Texas Lawbook.
Michelle Casady has been a reporter in Texas since January 2009. She's covered crime at The Bryan-College Station Eagle, courts at the San Antonio Express-News and civil litigation for Law360. In July 2022, she joined The Texas Lawbook.
Her reporting has included covering arrests, trials, plea deals and settlements, executions, natural and manmade disasters, colorful characters and various oddities.
She lives in Houston with her husband Matt, a sweet dog Hurricane Harvey brought into their lives, and a confident cat who keeps everyone in line. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas Tech University and was a 2018 fellow of the Loyola Marymount University Journalist Law School.
You can reach Michelle at michelle.casady@texaslawbook.net or (713) 614-7929.
In the four days since the Texas business courts opened for, well, business, only four cases have been filed. The high-dollar disputes will be adjudicated by new judges in the divisions covering Houston, Dallas and Austin. Attorneys from Bell Nunnally & Martin earned the title of first to file in the new courts.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a poker house’s appellate gamble pays off, Texas draws suit over a three-year old anti-ESG law, and a lawsuit that was seeking more than $7 billion in damages gets booted from Texas courts.
The group of doctors, Fondren Orthopedic, and HCA, a Nashville for-profit operator of healthcare facilities across the country, were in a limited partnership that owns and operates Texas Orthopedic Hospital. Fondren filed suit in October 2021, accusing HCA of violating a noncompete agreement by allowing 10 competing hospitals in the Houston area to offer similar services.
The governor on Tuesday appointed David Gunn, 63, of Beck Redden to serve as the newest justice on the First Court of Appeals in Houston. He is filling the seat vacated by April Farris, who was appointed to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals by Gov. Greg Abbott in June. Justice Gunn’s term will expire in December 2026.
During a hearing Tuesday Chief U.S. bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez brushed aside scheduling concerns the parties raised and ordered that Albert Alonzo, who served as case manager to former Judge David Jones for more than a decade, be deposed on Sept. 18. Jones, who resigned his office after public revelations that he had a secret romantic relationship with a Jackson Walker bankruptcy partner, will be deposed in the same courtroom, under the supervision of Chief Judge Rodriguez, the following day.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we share the announcement that a new magistrate judge will be serving in the Northern District of Texas, and share details about both the federal government’s antitrust lawsuit against Richardson-based RealPage and the punishment doled out to a former controller for Simon Greenstone Panatier who bilked the plaintiff’s firm out of nearly $1.5 million.
With about a week to go before the state’s new Fifteenth Court of Appeals goes live, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday morning, unanimously rejecting a constitutional challenge to the creation of the court.
On Wednesday, Jackson Walker ripped apart the racketeering and fraud lawsuit former Bouchard Transportation Company CEO Morton Bouchard III had lodged against it in February after the secret romance between former bankruptcy judge David Jones and former Jackson Walker bankruptcy partner Elizabeth Freeman came to light. “Mr. Bouchard’s response fails to solve the standing and pleading defects that plague the fiction his counsel has labeled as a complaint,” the firm told the court, doubling down on arguments it first made in May when it sought dismissal of the lawsuit.
On Wednesday morning, a redacted version of a transcript from a recent show cause hearing — in the litigation to determine whether Jackson Walker should be forced to return about $13 million in legal fees earned in bankruptcy cases before former Judge David Jones — was made publicly available.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a unanimous panel opinion Monday rejecting Judge Madeleine Connor’s bid to have Chapter 11 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code declared unconstitutional. Judge Connor, who was added to the list of vexatious litigants after filing a flurry of pro se lawsuits against her neighbors, is barred from filing more pro se litigation without first seeking permission from the local administrative judge. She argued that barrier to the courts violated her First Amendment right to petition. The Fifth Circuit disagreed.
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