Although the case “facts were difficult,” the Fifth Circuit vacated a tax evasion conviction of Houston lawyer Jack Stephen Pursley on a simple premise: a statute of limitations defense that the three-judge panel said was erroneously shot down by the trial court without analysis.
Updated: Fifth Circuit Judge Gregg Costa Resigns, ‘Returning to My Passion’
Judge Gregg Costa, one of the few moderate to left leaning jurists on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, told The Texas Lawbook Thursday that he is resigning his position on the 17-member appellate court to go back to practice law. Costa, who is only 49, informed his judicial colleagues, law clerks and President Joe Biden this week that he plans to leave the bench in early August. In an interview with The Lawbook, Costa said it “has been a true honor” to serve on the New Orleans-headquartered appeals court and that it was “a difficult decision” to resign.
“I look forward to returning to my passion and getting back into the arena of trying cases,” Costa said. The Texas Lawbook has the inside details.
HP’s Hartz: ‘People Were Going to Jail. We Knew We had a Great Case’
For a decade, HP battled a Taiwanese-based CD-ROM maker in courts from Texas to California over allegations of price fixing. HP senior counsel Brad Hartz and his team worked several thousand hours on objections, motions to dismiss, depositions and intense fights over discovery. HP’s outside counsel, Beck Redden, worked another 5,000 hours. It all paid off on June 5, 2020, when a federal appeals court handed Hartz and Beck Redden a $438 million victory. This is the behind the scenes story of one of the biggest judgments upheld by the Fifth Circuit in a decade and the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
Photo (credit Dylan Aguilar): Brad Hartz (center right) with attorneys from Beck Redden
Fifth Circuit to RealPage: Go Phish
A federal appeals court Wednesday held that the Richardson-based property management-software company, a recent victim of a phishing expedition, cannot recover $6 million in stolen funds from its insurer, which affirmed a lower-court ruling that reached the same conclusion.
Dismissal of Winter-Storm Claim Against ERCOT Sidesteps Immunity Question
A state appellate court rejected San Antonio’s claim of exorbitant pricing by ERCOT during Winter Storm Uri, but did not address the key question of whether the operator of the Texas power grid has sovereign immunity from lawsuits.
SCOTUS Grants Review in Texas Dispute Over Sovereign Immunity
In a rare move, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to take a Texas sovereign-immunity case that originated from one of the state appellate courts rather than from the Texas Supreme Court.
Former Dallas Appellate Justice Joins Thompson Coburn
With the move, Douglas Lang will co-chair the St. Louis-based firm’s national appellate practice.