Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Ticket’s parent company is accusing Jacob Kemp and Daniel McDowell, the former hosts of popular sports talk radio show The Hang Zone, of violating a noncompete agreement by launching a new podcast after leaving the station in July.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, mootness ends Surfside Beach property owners’ dispute with the Texas General Land Office in a 2-1 ruling from the Fifth Circuit, a challenge to the Inflation Recovery Act’s medication pricing controls keeps rolling and a conservative activist sues Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over an impeachment-related gag order.
Over the last three years the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has sent more certified questions annually to the Texas Supreme Court than it has in decades. The recent increase — five in 2021, six in 2022 and four so far this year — is notable when compared to the average of 1.8 a year the Fifth Circuit had sent for the 24 years prior. Does accepting the questions — a discretionary decision by SCOTX — strain the court’s ability to decide disputes percolating through Texas’ 14 intermediate appellate courts?
The Smith County jury heard about three days of testimony and deliberated for five hours before agreeing 10-1 that Walmart was 80 percent liable for the injuries suffered by a subcontractor who was hit by a shoplifter fleeing the parking lot.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a federal judge in Texas determines an insurer does not have to cover policyholders accused of stealing $80 million in Bitcoin through a malware attack, the operators of a pyramid scheme agree to pay Texas $10.76 million and the state draws a lawsuit from booksellers over a new regulation.
The jury cleared Richard Hall of conspiring to defraud the government but convicted him on charges of paying kickbacks and conspiring to launder money. Hall, the former owner of Rxpress Pharmacy and Xpress Compounding, faces decades in prison.
In the nine months attorney Kyle Pugh worked on the case, he took 20 depositions, hired numerous experts and prepared to simultaneously prove the government was responsible for his client’s injuries and that the orthopedic surgeon who treated Michael Le was not.
The jury of five women and three men heard six days of testimony before beginning deliberations around 1 p.m. Wednesday. About three hours later they determined Schlumberger had not discriminated against Jessica Cheatham based on her sex, had not subjected her to a hostile work environment, had not retaliated against her and had not constructively discharged its former field engineer.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, closing arguments are coming soon in a $55 million pharmacy fraud trial, Porter Hedges gets $15.35 million for a developer client in an eminent domain fight and a jury in Waco on Friday unanimously determined Google owes $339 million for patent infringement.
A former Schlumberger field engineer who is suing the company over alleged sexual harassment and discrimination she experienced during her two-and-a-half-year employment with the oilfield services company was on the stand for much of Thursday and Friday, sharing her claims with jurors in her own words.
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