Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday announced he was suing Southwestern Public Service Company, which does business as Xcel Energy, for allegedly causing 2024’s Smokehouse Creek Fire. The fire, which killed three and caused more than $1 billion in damages, was the largest wildfire in recorded Texas history. (File photo by Julio Cortez/The Associated Press)
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, on the same day a patent holder who won a $445.5 million verdict against Samsung Electronics asked the court for a permanent injunction that would bar the company from selling its infringing phone, the tech giant asked the court for a new trial.
A jury in New Mexico sided with a Texas family on Friday, agreeing a defect in a Michelin tire was to blame for an incident that left three people dead. The lawsuit was filed in New Mexico district court in San Miguel County against Michelin North America and Discount Tire Company of New Mexico in 2021.
In a 10-2 decision reached after deliberating over two days, a jury in Dallas County last night determined New Prime and its driver owe $44 million in damages to the family of a man who was killed during a fatal pileup on an icy Interstate 35 in February 2021.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Houston has determined that while a litigation trustee’s $4.65 million settlement demand is reasonable, the court cannot compel Relm Insurance Ltd. to fund the within-limits settlement.
Houston personal injury attorney Anna Greenberg represents four women who allege they were ejaculated on while shopping at Dollar Tree stores — one in Miami, one in San Diego, a client in Colorado Springs who was shopping with her mother and 2-year-old child, and one in Houston.
“I would say it’s a uniquely vile sex crime, and my clients are uniquely injured here because it’s happening to them in a public space,” Greenberg told The Texas Lawbook in a recent interview. “They are customers at a store, minding their own business and often are approached from behind and don’t know what’s happening to them until it’s too late.” (Photo by Erik McGregor/Sipa USA via AP Images)
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the state of Texas secures a temporary restraining order against Johnson & Johnson from a judge in rural West Texas. The order came a few days after the pharmaceutical company asked a Travis County judge to bring an end to what it said were four retaliatory investigations launched after Johnson & Johnson got a win in Tylenol-related litigation the attorney general initiated in rural East Texas.
Western District of Texas Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig A. Gargotta issued a 199-page opinion and order Tuesday in a case he’s been presiding over for six years. He wrote that the trustee failed to prove all but one of its claims for relief and awarded just $1 in damages. “Further, there was insufficient evidence to support an award of damages or attorney’s fees in this case,” he wrote. “The result may be viewed as harsh, but it is appropriate.”
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announces a $41.5 million settlement of one Harrison County state court lawsuit against pharmaceutical industry defendants and files another in the same venue, and a fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin draws a wrongful death lawsuit in the wake of a freshman’s death by suicide.
Pushing aside what’s already been reported — like the number of times Judge Jerry Smith wrote that he dissents (16), the number of times he calls out Judge Jeffrey Brown by name (279) and the number of times he references the Soros family (17) — The Lawbook asked more than a dozen appellate lawyers to weigh in on the aftermath: whether the tone of the dissent and the majority’s decision on the timing of the opinion’s release would have an impact on the judiciary, and the public’s opinion of the judiciary, moving forward.
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