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.
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.
The Fifth Court of Appeals has granted an unopposed request from Ken Paxton to postpone oral arguments in the lawsuit brought against him by the state bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline, days after he requested they be delayed until after the conclusion of his impeachment trial.
“The case will be reset for submission in due course,” the court’s order reads.
More than 90 insurers have been named as defendants in the lawsuit brought by settlement trustee Barbara Houser, who formerly served as the chief bankruptcy judge in the Northern District of Texas until her retirement in May 2020.
Jurors heard opening statements Tuesday that included examples of the rig site sexual harassment Jessica Cheatham alleges she endured for more than two years while working for Schlumberger. The trial taking place before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt is expected to last 10 days.
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