Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Reinforcing a ruling from the Dallas court of appeals, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday determined that a grocer’s failure to investigate its suspicions that a landlord had leased its property to a competitor means it must forfeit a $20.8 million jury award.
In a major legal victory Wednesday for leaders of Gateway Church, a federal judge in Sherman dismissed a lawsuit brought by members of the church who claim its leaders misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of their tithes.
For more than five decades, Douglas Lang has been a staple of the Texas appellate law community, including 16 years as a justice on the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas. Last week, Lang joined Dallas-based Carrington Coleman as senior counsel after more than four years at Thompson Coburn.
An error in the jury charge means Union Pacific Railroad Company will be getting a new trial in a lawsuit brought by a woman who drunkenly fell asleep on the tracks in a seated position and sued the company for her injuries.
In its recent decision in K&K Inez Properties v. Kolle, Texas Supreme Court clarifies the required showing for a “responsible third party” designation. This article examines the holding and its implications for practitioners.
Careful AI use enhances both written and oral advocacy while creating opportunities for meaningful, impressive efficiency gains. The technology was breathtaking when I ran my first AI query and has rapidly improved since. Here are some practical lessons I have learned that are aimed at appellate practitioners but applicable to any litigation practice.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Third Court of Appeals Justice Rosa Lopez Theofanis shares how she sees AI impacting the appellate process and dishes on what lawyers practicing before her shouldn’t do. Justice Theofanis, who is the first sitting judge to participate in Asked & Answered, joined the all-female panel in January 2023.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, investigators with the SEC’s Fort Worth regional office accuse a Houston-area man of running a Ponzi-like scheme that defrauded about 150 investors out of $12.3 million, and the fight between Texas and Discord heats up.
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday determined 5-4 that Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 52.006(b)(2), which applies a $25 million cap on bonds posted to appeal, applies per judgment debtor.
Dallas County Court at Law Judge D’Metria Benson said the mandatory mask mandate that she ordered for all participants in her courtroom is necessary to protect a personal health condition that makes her “highly susceptible to infection.”
But the lawyer who originally made the allegations said he has recently witnessed Judge Benson at campaign fundraisers and events where neither the judge nor anyone was wearing a mask.
Houston personal injury lawyer Michelle Teresa Acosta had sued San Antonio divorce lawyer Allan Roy Manka after she said he “grabbed” and “squeezed” her butt in the lobby of the Wilson County Courthouse in Floresville in June 2019. A jury agreed, and awarded her $5 million in compensatory damages. This week, that award was left intact by the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio.
Federal courts cannot review President Donald Trump’s executive orders denying security clearance to anyone or any group of people, even if those orders target all Asians or Hispanics, Catholics or Jews, a lawyer for the Trump administration told a federal appeals court Thursday.
“It is not reviewable,” Abhishek Kambli, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
But the attorney for the four law firms argued that President Trump’s EOs targeting them last year had nothing to do with national security, but instead were motivated by viewpoint discrimination.
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