Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Citgo draws another suit — this one seeking $400 million — from members of the so-called Citgo 6 who were imprisoned in Venezuela for years, XTO gets a win in a lawsuit over exposure to natural gas production activities that had been lingering in the courts for seven years and we detail some interesting grants from the Texas Supreme Court.
In a unanimous 24-page ruling issued Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison’s April 2023 dismissal of the lawsuit brought by the heirs of Dr. Max Emden against the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The lawsuit revolved around who is the rightful owner of a 1764 painting by Bernardo Bellotto called “The Marketplace at Pirna.”
Lawyers from Dallas-based Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel earlier this month convinced the jury in a 10-2 decision that their client, Paul Gill, was entitled to damages from ExxonMobil for its failure to warn consumers about the risk of exposure to benzene that is in its petroleum products, including gasoline. Gill, who worked as a Mobil service station mechanic between 1975 and 1980, was diagnosed in 2019 with acute myeloid leukemia and testified about using gasoline to clean car parts.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Samsung beats back a patent suit seeking half a billion dollars in damages after arguing the plaintiff had unclean hands, a jury in Marshall renders a $445 million infringement verdict and we detail what led American Airlines to replace Wilson Elser as its outside counsel in a lawsuit involving a bathroom recording of a 9-year-old girl.
Invoking The Simpsons, U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr on Thursday issued an opinion denying a request from plaintiffs’ lawyers who represented Fluor Corporation shareholders in a securities class action to tack a 1.9 multiplier on their fee award in the lawsuit that resulted in a $33 million settlement.
In a petition for a writ of injunction filed with the state’s high court Wednesday afternoon, Dallas County alleges numerous ways the structure of the new court violates the state’s constitution. In June, the Legislature passed and the governor signed into law S.B. 1045, which created the Fifteenth Court of Appeals and granted it exclusive, statewide jurisdiction over certain cases involving the state or state officials. The jurisdiction of the state’s other 14 intermediate appellate courts is tethered to the district and county courts within its geographic region, which Dallas County argues is constitutionally required.
In a ruling issued Wednesday that drew a concurrence from two of the three judges on the panel, the Fifth Circuit determined there was a fact issue that should have precluded Chili’s from getting an early win in the lawsuit brought by Sharnez Hager. Hager, who is Black, filed suit alleging the restaurant refused to seat her family at an open table, told her it was reserved for someone else, then sat her white fiancé at the table when he entered the restaurant moments later.
The Texas Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling issued Friday, decided Houston attorney George Fleming was barred — or judicially estopped — from arguing the claims of his former clients were substantially similar after he earlier defeated class certification by arguing the claims were too distinct and therefore not suitable for class treatment. Fleming’s about-face on whether the claims of his former clients were similar or distinct came in the wake of his win in a bellwether trial against six former clients referred to in court documents as the Harpst plaintiffs.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, an improper jury argument wipes out a $222 million award on appeal, a Dallas firm notches a $15 million verdict in a Connecticut mesothelioma case and the Texas Supreme Court declines to revive a lawsuit a couple dozen cities brought against streaming giants Disney+, Hulu and Netflix.
One month before the Texas Supreme Court revived a novel lawsuit SilverBow Resources Operating lodged against Energy Transfer alleging it had interfered with its drilling rights via underground contamination linked to an injection well, Jennifer Cadena was promoted to become the company’s assistant general counsel and senior land manager after three years as senior exploration and production counsel.
She worked alongside outside counsel at Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing to ensure when the McMullen County jury finally got to hear the case, they would agree SilverBow was entitled to damages from Energy Transfer.
When the jury awarded SilverBow $24.5 million in damages in February 2023, it was a hard-fought result eight years in the making.
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